


Love Bites

by Assido_Mina



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man (Tom Holland Movies), Spider-Man - All Media Types, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: (They're so fucking stupid I love them), Bisexual Michelle Jones, Bisexual Peter Parker, But then the ROMANTIC tension will rear its head..., Developing Relationship, Eventual Romance, Explicit Sexual Content, F/M, Fluff, Fluff and Smut, Friends With Benefits, Friends to Lovers, I have never and will never write anyone straight, Lovers to Lovers???, Resolved Sexual Tension, Slow Burn, kind of, uhhh
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-07-24
Updated: 2019-09-26
Packaged: 2020-07-18 00:49:18
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 7
Words: 40,893
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19965988
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Assido_Mina/pseuds/Assido_Mina
Summary: Peter Parker and Michelle Jones are both very smart people, one could venture to say two of the smartest people in the entire school.But alcohol makes fools of us all, and they are no exception. But one drunken mistake can remain just that, one mistake. Once it turns into another, then another, you may have to come to terms with the fact that you're running out of other things to blame.Not that they'll ever listen.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> My first time writing this pairing! I hope you like it :3 Please leave a comment if you do!

There were many ways that a homecoming dance went, if you happened to be one of the lucky few actually going with someone who meant a little something to you. There were romantic dances while you stared into each others eyes, the awkward talks that you have with your friends once the initial euphoria of the atmosphere momentarily ebs, before it all comes rushing back the closer you dare yourselves to get.

Sometimes, if you were very, very lucky, you’d get a chance for something more intimate once the night came to an end, but more often than not all you got was as chaste a goodbye kiss as you will have gotten or given, all while two sets of parents stare into the backs of your skulls with more physical presence than you will ever seen them have than at any other moment in your life. Such is the turnout of a dance attended by people in the apex of both hormones and awkwardness.

One of the ways that a dance has never, in the history of dances, ended is with you breaking off to throw your date’s father in prison, before you stumble back to your house alone and sleep off what is surely a broken rib or five.

But that was how the homecoming dance ended for one Peter Parker, absolutely certain and not lacking evidence that he’s become the universe’s chew toy, throwing a potential relationship in the trash, a not wholly terrible man in prison, and an unfortunate daughter’s life into turmoil. And, perhaps not as worldendingly but more frustratingly as time went on and wounds healed, rendering a highly embarrassing conversation with his aunt all for naught.

Peter had already been given The Talk years previous, he hadn’t exactly been itching for a refresher.

That had been almost two months ago now, well, six weeks and three days, but who was counting? The rest of the school had moved on, and Peter had decided that it was time for him to move on as well, as awful as he might still feel and indeed may always feel for breaking up what was by all accounts a very happy family. Funded by arms dealing, but happy nonetheless.

But for as bad as it may have ended, and as woefully short as it may have been, being with Liz had taught him that maybe he really _could_ put himself out there more, to become more than just a wallflower that only shines when he’s wearing a mask. Which was how he ended up standing outside Flash Thompson’s house in the suburbs, spotlights shining up into the night sky and assorted students milling around either in the entrance or spread across the lawn, each of them holding some sort of bottle that they really shouldn’t have been able to acquire legally.

He hadn’t been invited of course, Ned had, which was why he had arrived to see his friend standing on the front lawn staring up at a house that really had no business being as expensive as it was, a box shoved under his arm and a bottle in his hand. It was then that Peter realized that the disdain that Flash had for him was _exclusive_ to him, not spreading to the one person who made a conscious decision to spend time with him. That was… enlightening, and insulting, but mainly just plain _mean._

“Dude, have you seen this house?” Ned asked, barely turning his head as Peter walked up to his side, “I wish I lived in a house like this.”

“Yeah that’d… be pretty awesome.” Much as he didn’t like it, he had to admit that Flash’s house was at least nice. He loved the apartment that May lived in, it had been home for about as long as he could remember, but he’d be lying if he said that sometimes he didn’t want just a little more space.

In a New York summer he’d almost kill for a pool.

Walking forward, wiping his sweaty palms on his jeans, Peter took a deep breath and stepped through the front door, Ned’s comforting presence at his back the whole way. Just because he’d decided to put himself out there didn’t mean that he was going to be able to just waltz into a party like he owned the place, there was still that instinctual feeling that he just didn’t belong, that it was stupid for him to even try.

It didn’t help that for a few weeks after homecoming he’d gained a minor reputation as the loser who ditched his date, but thankfully that had started fading. Well, except in the case of _some_ people that he knew.

“Hey loser,” Came a voice from his side, one that he’d become surprisingly familiar with over the last few weeks. Not without some… confusion on his part. “I didn’t think you showed up to parties.”

“MJ.” He smiled, blowing air through his lips and clapping his hands together in the universal sign of terrified distress. “H-How are you?”

“Bored,” She said, looking around the throng of badly dancing classmates. There was a bottle in her hand, a surprise to Peter but he supposed that he was the only one that came here empty handed. Literally, he was just starting to realize that he’d left his keys at home. “Why are you doing that? You look… weird.”

“Doing what?” He asked, continuing to pat himself down in search of any sort of key shaped lump in his clothing.

“You’re dancing like Flash, stop it.” Sliding a bottle across the table to him, MJ settled back into her spot at the counter, holding her arm with one hand and her own bottle in the other. A few weeks ago he would have probably let the bottle slide off the table and shatter on the floor, never realizing it was for him, but that had been a few weeks ago. Now he grabbed it in his hand as smoothly as someone of his… particular clumsiness could manage, twisting open the cap and readying his taste buds for a no doubt terrible ordeal.

It was impressive, she hadn’t really talked to him much if she could help it, still sat all the way on her end of the table at lunch ignoring everything to do with their very existence, yet the few occasions that she’d slid a milk box or a soda across to him before turning back to whatever book she was reading that day had stuck with him greatly. And it all led to here, suffering through one of the worst beers that he’d ever tasted, at a party hosted by someone who despised him, standing next to someone who had shared less than three figures worth of words with him in conversation.

Nothing like a conscious realization of reality to ruin your mood.

“Do you actually like the taste of this?” He asked, wrinkling his nose and shouting over the music to be heard. MJ just looked at him, considering her answer for a moment before she shook her head, taking another sip from her bottle. “Why are you drinking it then?”

“Hmm… peer pressure?” He wasn’t certain, but he thought that he saw a ghost of a smile pass over her face for a split second, and for some reason it felt… strange. She certainly was no stranger to expression, she wasn’t a robot after all, but most of the time he felt like it was at his expense. This was the first time that he thought, as brief as it might have been, that he was actually in on the joke for once.

A shame that he had no idea what the joke could actually _be,_ but he’d take more conversation over knowing everything.

“So why’d you come tonight?” He shuffled along the table, getting three steps closer to her in the one spot that seemed to have any free space at all. She certainly noticed, but didn’t make any move to escape or tell him to move back, so he figured he wasn’t _totally_ repulsive. “I thought you hated things like this?”

“I don’t hate it, I just think it’s stupid. Everyone’s hormonal and drunk, it’s just a mess of bad decisions.”

“And you’re here because…”

“Oh, I think it’s funny seeing them be idiots, that’s all.” A more genuine smile, more accurately a smirk, and this time he _definitely_ considered himself in on the joke. But looking around, how could he _not_ consider it at least a _little_ funny? 

“So where’d the other loser go?” She asked, looking over Peter’s shoulder and shuffling closer, “Did you just walk here all on your own?”

“Huh? Ned’s right h- oh he’s gone.” Peter jumped in place, trying to see over the crowd and try to get a glimpse of whatever hat Ned had on that night, but it wasn’t working. He could disappear surprisingly well for someone who was just as clumsy as Peter was, but then again Peter could do the exact same thing, he just had the excuse of being a… superhuman, potentially half-spider thing. He’d never really worked out _exactly_ how far it went.

“Aww all alone?” MJ pushed her bottom lip out, matching his gaze until he looked away and tried to climb up onto the table. “Uh… what are you doing?”

“I need… to find… Ned…” Peter jumped up and down on the counter, turning forty five degrees each time to cover the entirety of the room. “I really… can’t see him…”

“Well everyone else can see you, so like… stop that.” Setting her bottle down onto the table, she placed her hands on her hips and squinted up at him. “I knew you were basically trying to ruin your reputation but I didn’t think you’d be so blatant about it.”

“What do you mean?” He asked, immediately dropping down to sit on the edge, legs crossed underneath him, “I’m not trying to ruin anything.”

“Wow, you’re succeeding without even trying, I _knew_ you were gifted,” She snorted, “Seriously, what’s up with you?”

“What’s up with me? What’s up with _you?”_ Tilting his head curiously, he picked his beer back up and hummed into the bottle. “You never talk to me, it’s kind of weird.”

Her eyes went wide for a fraction of a second, just long enough for him to realize just how bad that may have sounded. 

“Wait no I didn’t mean it like that!” He waved his hands in front of him, spilling beer onto the floor. “I just mean like, you _never_ talk to me, so it’s just kind of…”

She watched him struggle for the right word for five seconds, before suggesting, “Weird?”

“Yeah! Yeah it’s just kind of weird, but _you’re_ not weird, you know? It’s just weird that you’re talking to me, not that I’m _not_ glad you’re talking to me, it’s just kind of unexpected!” He looked so happy to finally have gotten his thoughts formed into a loose conglomeration of words that she couldn’t help but snort another laugh, covering it with her hand just too late for him not to notice. He didn’t say anything about it, afraid of ruining the moment again, wisely deciding to shut up and take another sip of his beer, smiling around the neck of the bottle. “So why-”

“Penis!”

“Oh, this'll be fun,” MJ laughed, sliding away a few feet from Peter, who already looked like all the joy had been sucked out of him. Flash marched through the crowd, chest pushed out and his chin held high, eyes narrowed as he took in the one uninvited guest in the entire party.

“Hey Flash,” Peter sighed, not even bothering to hide his displeasure, “Nice party.”

“Yeah it is,” He replied, perking up like a bird of paradise and smiling to himself, “How’d you get in my house?”

“The door was ope-”

“Shshshh, that was rhetorical.”

“That wasn’t very clea-”

“Why aren’t you leaving?”

“You’re standing in front of m-”

“How’d you find out where I live?”

“It’s 2016 everyone knows where you live. Why don’t you know where _I_ live?”

Flash screwed up his face, viscerally disgusted at the mere _thought._ “Why would I want to know where you live?”

“What if that’s one of the questions we have to answer some day?”

“You think one of the questions we’ll have to ask to move onto the semi-finals will be ‘where does Peter Parker eat, sleep and dispose of waste?”

“Well, I-I don’t know what the questions are gonna be. That’s the whole point of the contest.” Peter settled back on the table, holding his beer up and raising an eyebrow. “What if I’m right?”

Flash held his finger up, mouth halfway open and his eyes nearly closed as he tried to wrap his head around the exchange that had just taken place, before groaning to himself and turning on his heel. It was a good thirty seconds after he walked away that MJ cleared her throat, only now coming out of her own confused state.

“I… can’t believe that worked.”

“Neither…” Peter sighed to himself, setting the empty bottle down and turning to MJ with an apology written all across his face, “Sorry, but I’ve gotta go find Ned, I don’t want him to do anything stupid.”

“Aww, and we were just getting to know each other.”

He stopped, halfway through a step and asking, “Really? Because I guess I coul-”

“No, no no.” She shook her head, holding her hand up. “I was joking, I don’t care.”

“...Right.” Turning away and pushing himself through the crowd, he searched every direction that he could for his friend, looking both low and high on the off chance that someone had managed to stick him to the ceiling and the greater chance that he’d simply passed out in the middle of the floor. He found no such luck inside the house, but as soon as he stepped out the front door again he found him right where he had the first time, standing in front of the house staring up at the roof, box tucked under his arm and bottle in hand.

“Ned!” He shouted, shaking him out of his focused moment and raising his hands out at his sides, “What’s going on? Why are you out here?”

“This house is just… so cool, you know?”

Peter stepped back to his side, staring up for a moment before standing in front of Ned, trying to get as close a view to his as he could get. “It’s made of metal and glass, that’s what every house around here is made of.”

“Yeah but… _imagine.”_

“If we had a house like this we could have our own parties, not have to put up with Flash.” Peter nodded, staring down at Ned’s side. “How many of those have you had Ned?”

“Just… just the one.”

“Mmm, yep.” He smiled, clapping Ned on the shoulder and flicking his head back at the house, “You wanna go back inside?”

“Hold on, hold on… I’ve been wanting to ask you something for a while now…” Ned checked around them, seeing the only people around them were either making out or vomiting into the nearest bush, before he leaned in conspiratorially. Peter wasn’t sure what he was going to say, somehow he was already pretty drunk, but he was using his ‘Serious’ voice.

“Yeah Ned?”

“You’ve got really good healing right? Like Captain America?” Peter nodded slowly, it may very well have been better than Captain America’s, but he wasn’t going to test the theory. “I was thinking… if you like… drank dishwashing liquid… would that kill you? Or would your healing stop that?”

Somehow the front yard seemed to get even quieter, the two of them staring at each other, Ned in rapt interest and Peter in slowly dawning confusion, his eyebrows knitting together as he went over the words twice, then three times, before sighing. “I’m not going to drink dishwashing liquid Ned, so I’m not going to find out.”

“Oh come on! It’ll be cool! It’ll be like… good for an experiment!”

“I’m going back inside.”

Peter walked off, trying to stop thinking of whether it would actually kill him or if it would just taste terrible, looking back every two seconds to make sure that Ned was still following him along. He might have been wanting to run away from _that_ particular conversation, but he wasn’t going to just leave his drunk friend out on the lawn for people to gawk at. That was just rude.

“You found the other one,” MJ said, looking up from her phone and cocking an eyebrow, “How many has he had?”

Ned grinned, “On-”

“He had at least six, he’s really… really putting them away,” Peter laughed, turning back to Ned and winking dramatically. Ned just kept grinning, nodding his head along and agreeing ‘yeah six!’

“I’m sure,” MJ said, before pressing her finger into Peter’s chest, “How many have _you_ had?”

“Just the one,” He replied, “You gave it to me.”

“You’re not even drinking?” Flash groaned, stepping seemingly out of the shadows and clapping his hands together, “God you’re just such a killjoy!”

“I’m having a pretty good time,” Peter replied, “They are too!”

Ned grinned again. “I am!”

“I’m not,” MJ said, shrugging her shoulders, “But I never have a good time, so that doesn’t count.”

“Well _I’m_ getting massively bummed out by you being here Parker, but if you’re not going to _leave…”_ Flash held up a bottle, clearly filled with some amber liquid that Peter didn’t even have to smell to know it would make his eyes water. “This might actually make you fun to hang around.”

By now a few people standing around them had heard the minor challenge, and once they heard it their friends did too, and as soon as _those_ friends heard someone started chanting. Soon what had initially been a small, cocksure challenge issued for the purpose of _intimidating_ him into leaving rather than out of genuine want for competition had turned into the main attraction of at least a few dozen drunk, rowdy teenagers. Peter wasn’t much liking being the center of attention so suddenly, and though he was lapping up the spotlight Flash wasn’t looking so certain about it now either. The only thing keeping him from _truly_ starting to panic was the fact that Peter Parker, infamous wimp, would neve-

“Yeah, ok.”

The crowd stopped their chant of “Drink! Drink!” to cheer at the top of their lungs, already pushing Flash out towards the back of the house where a small table had already been set up, Cindy of all people sweeping her hand across the top and knocking cans and bottles across the floor. Flash’s eyes were as wide as dinner plates, and if the crowd could actually see him now they would see that Peter’s were the same.

MJ and Ned could see him though, and they were caught between laughing and sighing.

“You’re a moron,” MJ sighed, “Why would you say yes?”

“B-Because… uh… I don’t know.” He scratched the back of his neck, grimacing as the crowd finally turned around to look at him. “Guess I’m doing this huh?”

“You could just run away?” She said it like it was the simplest thing in the world, and honestly it just may have been, “Everyone already thinks you’re a weird wimp who runs away from everything, you’ve got like… nothing to lose.”

“Yeah,” Ned agreed, nodding his head slightly too fast, “It _was_ really funny seeing him panic though.”

Peter’s foot was already resting on its ball, ready to take off running at the slightest sign that he needed to. They were right, his reputation was already so lacking that there was nothing that he could really do to jeopardize it anymore than he already had, so what would it matter if he ran away? 

But there was something, call it stubborn pride, call it _spite,_ maybe even try to connect it to a lesson about responsibility, but he was finding that he didn’t _want_ to run away from this. The more that Peter stared through the crowd and saw Flash sitting at that table, smile growing as he thought that Peter really _was_ living up to be the wimp that everyone thought that he was, the more that his resolve to actually stay increased.

Besides, he was the friendly neighborhood Spider Man. Spider Man could have a drink every now and then to relax.

“Hold my coat Ned.”

“You’re not wearing a coat.”

“Hey, wait,” MJ protested, stepping in front of him and blocking his path, “You’re not serious? You’re really going to do this?”

“Yeah.” He nodded, allowing himself to smirk when he looked over at Flash. “Yeah I am.”

Narrowing her eyes down at him, seemingly searching for any sign of weakness that she could find, she shrugged and patted him on the back, pushing him forward and saying, “Fine. Go kick his ass.”

To say that everyone hadn’t been expecting this to be the outcome of the night was an understatement, and by the time that he took his seat on the other side of the table you could have cut the tension with a knife. The crowd was utterly silent as Betty placed two glasses in front of them, stepping back and waiting for the two of them to make the next move.

Neither of them did. They weren’t sure of what the etiquette of the event was supposed to be.

“Open the bottle you morons!” MJ shouted, shocking them out of their minor staring contest and making Peter’s hands reach out for the bottle. No reason to prolong this anymore than it already had been, he figured, twisting the cap off and filling both of their glasses halfway.

The smell was… even more pungent that he’d thought it would be, but he just had to hope that enough of it would just kill his senses of taste and smell, that would make this whole thing a lot easier to handle.

“Ready?” Flash said, still feeling confident in his chances. Peter supposed he couldn’t blame him. He nodded in reply, tilting his head back and emptying his glass down his throat, trying as best he could not to let any of it touch his tongue. He was unsuccessful, and he wanted nothing more than to gag and retch at what was without a doubt the most disgusting thing that he’d ever had in his mouth, including his impromptu journey to the bottom of a lake.

But he kept it down, and though he made no effort to disguise the disgust on his face, he could tell that everyone around him was still surprised that he’d actually done it. 

Suddenly Flash wasn’t feeling as confident.

Refilling the glasses without being asked, feeling a surge of sudden bravado coming on, Peter took his glass in hand and waited for Flash to do the same, keeping eye contact and smirking as he downed his second drink of the challenge. The smirk didn’t last, being replaced with an open mouth twisted in revulsion, but he still had to give himself some points.

This continued on for the third, the fourth, the fifth, and soon enough Flash… really wasn’t looking too good. Swaying in his seat, fumbling for his glass, almost spilling it all over himself, it was clear that he was feeling the effects of their little drinking game. Peter however, to everyone’s surprise and especially his own, wasn’t looking any worse for wear, not even sweating, for all intents and purposes, it seemed like the alcohol was doing absolutely nothing at all to him.

He couldn’t even feel confident, he was more confused than anything, and it only got worse when Flash finally slumped over the table after their next drink, waving his hand feebly and groaning into the glass top.

There was a beat, then another, and before he could even _blink_ the rest of the crowd was cheering at the top of their lungs and clapping him on the back, a few seconds going by before he allowed himself an astonished smile, looking around at everyone staring down at him in drunken adoration. No doubt most of them wouldn’t give him the time of day after tonight, but he could enjoy it while it lasted.

Leaning across to Flash and making sure that he wasn’t in the process of dying, Peter congratulated him on a good game before standing up and raising his hands in the air, basking in the chance to be in the spotlight for once without wearing a mask. It was a nice feeling, he could see himself getting used to it. Couldn’t really see himself pursuing it.

“Peter!” Ned shouted out, walking up with an equally confused MJ in tow, “You did it! You won!”

“Yeah, I… guess I did.” Peter ran his hand through his hair, grinning with a blush that very much had nothing to do with the alcohol. “Did I look cool?”

“Yeah, it was weird,” MJ said, reaching for his half-full glass on the table, “Did you cheat or something?”

Downing the glass on her own, she squinted and looked at the almost empty bottle, then to a mumbling Flash, then finally at a wide-eyed Peter Parker, and she decided that she hadn’t felt more confused in her life before that moment. “Do you have a drinking problem? Because that’s the only way I can see this working.”

“No… I don’t remember having a drinking problem.”

“Hmm…” She shrugged, pointing over at the counter in the kitchen, still stacked high with bottles of liquor that had been pulled out of the cabinets by some of the other party goers before they got distracted by the drinking contest between two of the biggest nerds in the school. “Go drink his alcohol if you won’t get drunk from it, it’ll probably really annoy his parents.”

“Oh I… I don’t wanna do that…”

“Remember how he calls you ‘Penis’?”

“You know what I _am_ kind of thirsty now that I think about it.”

Walking over and leaning down to inspect the labels, he made it ten seconds before he gave up on trying to make it look like he was actually able to tell what he was looking at. “Which of these don’t taste bad?”

“They all taste bad,” MJ said, shoving him out of the way with her shoulder and swiping her finger along the labels before snatching up one of the bottles, “Here, it’s Kahlua, tastes like gross coffee.”

“That… sounds great.”

“Would you rather have one that was just regular gross?”

“No, I… I guess not.” Peter took the bottle, figuring that he didn’t have to worry about his consumption by now as he unscrewed the cap, taking a deep breath and taking as big a gulp from the bottle as he dared. With his eyes squeezed tight, he kept expecting a new feeling of revulsion to wash over him, but instead it was… actually almost pleasant. Kind of sweet, still with that bitterness of alcohol on the edges of it, but overall it was a lot more pleasant than whatever it was that he’d been drinking before.

“You know what?” He asked MJ, who just stared back at him, “That’s not terrible!”

****

The first thing that Peter was aware of was the pillow beneath his cheek, so soft and surrounding so much of his head that it felt like he was resting inside of a dream. The second was that he wasn’t at the party anymore, and that his head was absolutely _pounding,_ the room spinning when he opened his eyes before he groaned and draped his arm over his face.

“What the hell…” He sighed, already feeling that something was strange but not quite having the energy to work out what it was. He shifted in place, sheets drifting across his bare chest and resting at his stomach, opening his eyes little by little and staring up at his ceiling.

Only, he was now realizing, it wasn’t _his_ ceiling. Not even close.

He let his arm fall to his side, expecting to hit empty bed, not expecting the soft lump and the gentle groan of “Ow, shit…”

Now his headache was all but forgotten, eyes so wide it was a wonder they didn’t fall right out of his skull, slowly turning his head to his right to see what exactly he was sharing the bed with. When he saw MJ’s eyes, just as wide as his, staring out at him from a wildly untamed mass of curls, mouth hanging open as she took him in as well, there wasn’t much of a reaction at first from either of them.

But their eyes drifted downwards, seeing that the other was very obviously not wearing anything in the way of clothes, before becoming intimately aware of the fact that _they_ weren’t wearing any clothes, and there was really only one thing that both of them could find it in themselves to say.

“WHAT THE FU-”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well there we go, the first chapter of this new story of mine! Normally I just work in BNHA or Persona, but my goddamn friend Jercy just HAD to get me into this pairing didn't they? (I hope you're happy, I know you're reading this.)  
> Well no smut just yet, but it WILL be coming! In the next chapter actually, you didn't think I was going to leave that night unexplained did you? I've already thought up at least three jokes I can use!
> 
> It me [Twitter!](https://twitter.com/AssidoMina) Give follow!
> 
> See you on the next :3


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> >:3

“-CK!?”

Peter crawled backwards so quickly that he could swear he stayed suspended in midair for a split second before he rocketed down to the floor, back thumping against the hardwood floor and bouncing him another inch. He shot up to his feet, staring in disbelief at his surprise bed guest, who was staring back at him with just as much astonishment.

Actually, given the circumstances, perhaps  _ he _ was  _ her _ guest.

“You’re naked!” MJ shouted, staring first at his chest, then drifting lower, before looking down at herself,  _ “I’m _ naked!”

Covering himself with both hands and taking another step back, Peter had a moment to recognize something that felt  _ wrong _ beneath his foot before he was falling backwards again, smacking the back of his head hard enough against the floor to see stars. “Ow! The hell is that!?”

Lifting his foot up and staring down at what was stuck to him, he screwed his face up in disgust when he recognized a condom, so much sadder in the morning light. MJ first seemed alarmed of what it was doing on her floor and whether it would stain in any way, before the implications truly set in for her.

“Oh my God,” She said, covering her eyes and shrinking into the covers,  _ “Please  _ tell me we didn’t…”

“We… didn’t?” Peter tried feebly, not having it in him to try and deny what was so obviously a truth right in front of him, “Maybe… it’s not as bad as we think it is?”

“How? How could it not be as bad as we think it is?” Letting her arms flop to her sides, she stared at him flatly, ignoring his nakedness for the moment, shifting in place and grimacing while she rubbed at her stomach. “Is this all an elaborate prank? Did someone sneak in and frame us?”

“Look, all we’ve gotta do is, wow this feels gross, is we’ve gotta think back to what happened. I’m sure once we do that everything’ll make sense!” He held his hands up in some approximation of victory, before he promptly deflated. “D-Do you remember what happened?”

“Ugh…” She groaned, rubbing at her temples with the tips of her fingers, “Last I remember you were walking across the table…”

****

“This party’s pretty good!” Peter shouted, the world upside down as he kept walking back and forth on his hands across the surface of the table. He’d been doing it for the last ten minutes, and while at first everyone had been impressed by the show of athleticism they’d soon given up on watching and moved onto more interesting endeavors, leaving only MJ and Ned to stand next to him and make sure he didn’t fall over and crack his skull open.

“Are you ok?” MJ asked, raising an eyebrow as he balanced on one hand and placed the bottle of Kahlua at his lips, slowly raising it until she could see his throat swelling with greedy gulps. “How do you drink an entire bottle of whiskey and be fine but then a few mouthfuls of Kahlua make you like this?”

“I don’t know!” He said happily, giggling to himself, “It’s really tasty now that I’m used to it, have some!”

She reached out and took the bottle, about to take him up on the offer when she noticed there wasn’t even a single drop left at the bottom. So, maybe a little more than just a few mouthfuls.

Not that she was completely sober herself, she just had more self-control than Peter did it seemed. With Flash  _ completely _ out of commission the rest of the party had realized there was no one to stop them from raiding the alcohol as much as they wanted, and she’d grabbed a bottle of vodka for herself before they could all be snatched up. While Peter had been content to more or less inhale his bottle of Kahlua, and seemed set to do the same to a bottle of Bailey’s that he’d procured out of seemingly  _ nowhere,  _ she’d been doing the responsible thing and keeping her consumption to occasional sips and gulps.

Maybe it wasn’t  _ that _ responsible, but compared to the drunken trapeze artist she may as well have been the principal.

But if Peter Parker of all people felt comfortable enough to cut loose and have fun, she figured that she could as well. Which was why with one deep gulp of the vodka bottle she leaned into his ear and whispered, “I bet you can’t do a flip.”

“Oh yeah?” He asked, “What do I get if I do?”

“Hmm… I’ll do a dare too, how’s that sound?”

When she pulled back he seemed to have a sparkle in his eye, tapping his hands to the end of the table and bracing himself. She realized what he was going to do just before he did it, watching the muscles in his biceps bulge for a moment before he shoved himself upwards into the air, curling himself into a ball and pivoting himself in the air, his face staring straight up at the ceiling for a moment before he was looking back down at the floor, getting his feet underneath him and slapping them against the tile for what MJ considered to be the most perfect dismount that she’d ever seen. He ruined it when he stood up straight and immediately stumbled backwards into the table, but it did very little to take away from the marvel of it. 

“Wow… That was… a lot better than I thought it would be.”

Peter laughed, eyes crinkling at the edges and his hand smoothing back his hair, taking the bottle of vodka when she offered it to him. “I’ve been practicing a lot.” He grimaced at the taste of the vodka, taking another deep gulp before handing it back to her. “Now  _ that _ tastes terrible.”

Ned hadn’t done much to speak up, swaying in place but still staring at them both with narrowed eyes, like he could see something they couldn’t. He looked ready to say something about it when he got a tap on his shoulder, turning around to see Betty with her arms wrapped around herself and a nervous smile on her face.

“Hey Ned…”

“Oh h-hey Betty!” He straightened his hat, trying to make himself seem much more sober than he actually was. “What’s uh… what’s up?”

“Me and Cindy were gonna go dance, do… do you wanna join us?”

Immediately all thoughts of Peter and MJ were forgotten as he nodded his head quickly, barely keeping his hat on as he walked forward and started following her to the group of people dancing outside. He did spare one look back over his shoulder though, and when Peter saw him he gave him the biggest smile that he could, before they disappeared into the crowd.

“Wow, look at him go,” He said, taking a deep drink out of a random bottle that he picked up from the counter and sighing, “It makes me so proud.”

MJ nodded, not bothering to hide her own smile at the small glimpses they got of the two of them through the shifting mass of people. When she looked over at Peter however she wrinkled her nose at the fruity odor, staring at the bottle in his hand for a few seconds before she asked, “Is that dishwashing liquid?”

Peter paused with his lips around the bottle, eyes widening as he slowly lowered it to read the label. “Yes it is.” Tossing the bottle over his shoulder, he burped out a bubble and leaned his elbow on the counter, doing his best to try and seem charming after downing half a bottle of pure chemicals. “So… about that dare.”

MJ rolled her eyes, but there was… something here that was making her feel strange. Maybe it was just the fact that she was drunk, or the surreality of seeing someone drink dishwashing liquid, but with the little smirk that was teasing the edge of his lips and the way the lights were reflecting off of his eyes like a thousand little explosions… he was actually  _ pulling off  _ charming.

Which was why rather than having the familiar dismissive response ready to go, for a moment she was actually  _ nervous _ about what he was going to ask, butterflies flapping in her stomach and a warm rush going to her head. That last point she was sure was the alcohol, but she wasn’t drunk enough to deny what the rest of it was about. “Y-Yeah?”

Taking his time to lean in, though with his cheeks rapidly starting to bloom red, his lips almost brushed against her ear and her heart stuttered in her chest. It was hard to believe that this was the same Peter that could barely keep himself from stammering if she so much as  _ looked _ at him, but alcohol was the greatest way to lose your inhibitions. Which was why when he leaned in so close that she could feel the heat radiating off of him, and he whispered, “Dance?” she wrapped her hand around his wrist and dragged him towards the crowd outside.

She was tired of not letting herself be free too.

Inside Peter’s mind however his thoughts were going haywire, having been thinking nothing except ‘What would Mr. Stark do? What would Mr. Stark do?’, almost breaking when he got close enough to see her pupils constrict and hear the faint shudder in her breath. There were some things that he was just not equipped to handle, and it turned out that the sight of her, the smell of her, he could only imagine the  _ feel _ of her… it turned out it was one of the things that just might break him. He hadn’t imagined that before tonight, it was strange.

He decided that it must have been the alcohol, and anyway the whole ordeal with Liz hadn’t even been two months ago, that was too soon to think that he could be attracted to anyone else… right?

A drunken dancer pushing against his back brought him back out of his thoughts, just in time for MJ to turn around and let go of his wrist, the two of them standing absolutely still in the middle of a wave of movement, immovable as they stared into each other’s eyes.

“I can’t dance,” Peter said, laughing and rubbing the back of his neck, “Can you?”

“No.” She shook her head, swallowing down her anxiety and stepping forward, trying to ‘feel’ the music or whatever it was that people talked about. She figured most of those people were on drugs, but just going with what felt right… somehow she felt like it was starting to work, a small movement of her shoulders, the tiniest cock of her hip, and she could tell that Peter was sucked in right away, barely hesitating for a moment before he started to do the same thing.

From an objective point of view it was horrible, two people who had never really had the chance to dance before in their lives weren’t going to consume a dangerous amount of alcohol and suddenly become Fred Astaire, but in the moment they found they weren’t really concerned about that. It made them feel  _ better _ that the other obviously had no idea what they were doing, the pressure lifted off their shoulders with every goofy misstep and awkward swing of their arms, until they were standing with barely two inches of space between them and just trying to  _ feel. _

“This isn’t as easy as I thought it would be,” Peter laughed, hands hovering over MJ’s hips and a lump firmly in his throat.

“No,” MJ said, exhaling a heavy breath before she grabbed his hands and pressed them against her, moving in closer and swaying to the beat. She was very much in uncharted territory, so focused on  _ not _ thinking about everything because thinking means acknowledging, acknowledging means second guessing, and she did not want to have this opportunity ruined because she decided to  _ think.  _ Though she had to admit, the feeling of his surprisingly muscled arms flexing under her fingers, the space between them getting smaller and smaller until it could barely be said to exist at all, feeling the hammering of each other’s hearts against their own, the heat from the blushes that were surely covering their faces… it was all heading in a direction that she considered dangerous.

Sure, he was attractive, that had never been in question, but seeing him up close like this, to be able to  _ feel _ him this close, it really was something completely different. And when MJ looked at Peter’s lips and noticed that he was staring at her’s as well… she thought how easy it would be to lean in and see exactly what they felt like…

Right before Abe stumbled into them and upended half a cup of beer between them, the cold shock breaking them out of their mutual moment of distraction, blushes intensifying even more than they had ever thought possible as they split apart from each other. Ignoring Abe’s apology, they walked off the dance floor while very pointedly not looking at each other, the sticky feeling of half drunk beer erasing just about all thoughts of  _ lips  _ and  _ heat _ and  _ muscle  _ from their minds.

“Ugh, this  _ sucks,”  _ MJ groaned, lifting her arms up and flicking drops of beer across the floor, “I didn’t bring another shirt.”

“Neither,” Peter sighed, standing there with the material of his shirt sticking to his chest not unlike his suit, except generally his suit didn’t feel so sticky or smell so pungent. “I might get out of here then, I don’t wanna smell like beer for the rest of the night.”

But doing that would mean that this little moment of theirs, ruined as it may be, really would be ending, and though he was absolutely certain he wasn’t going to remember this in the morning right at this moment he wanted to take whatever he could get, even if it was just another five minutes of conversation. “You… want to share a cab?”

She was too irritated to say no, or think about where things could possibly lead from there (surely nowhere dramatic), right then she just wanted to get into a clean shirt and prepare herself for what was absolutely going to be a mountain of a hangover. The faster she got home the better.

MJ nodded, leaning back against the table as he stepped away to make the call, watching the rest of her classmates either stumbling around drunk or dancing their hearts out, sometimes doing both. As… stupid as she might have felt, she could at least say that the night had been kind of fun before she’d gotten beer dumped all over her.

“Hey Parker,” She said, turning around to face him and immediately forgetting all about what she was going to say. He’d finished his call, but evidently the night had gotten too hot for him in the meantime, two buttons of his shirt having been undone and his sleeves rolled up to rest at his elbows. If she’d somehow missed that he was more muscular than the average nerd when he was walking for fifteen minutes on his hands, it was definitely impossible to deny with the small peeks of defined pecs and the tensing of his forearms as he gripped yet another bottle, upending it and swallowing down what had to be mouthfuls of some green liquor that she was reasonably certain wasn’t dishwashing liquid this time.

“Want some?” He asked, eyebrows raised and his entire expression open like he was a dog presenting her with the latest find from the outdoors, and before she could tell herself not to she was already taking the bottle from him and placing it at her lips. It was sweet, almost painfully in fact, but there was almost nothing to do in the meantime while they waited for their cab, and as far as she could see her only options for things to do were either to drink or to test her self control at seeing the muscles that he’d somehow kept hidden for so long.

So, she drank, until she took one step and could immediately tell how drunk she’d gotten, not having to do any sort of investigative work to see that he was absolutely just as gone as she was. He stumbled, bracing one hand on her shoulder to keep himself from falling flat into the ground, before grinning and giggling as he moved his hand away.

“You’re… really pretty,” He laughed, leaning back against the counter and holding his stomach, “I can’t believe it, you’re just… so  _ pretty!” _

“Shut  _ up _ nerd!” MJ grinned widely, struggling not to join in with his infectious laughter, but it was getting harder by the second. Why had she been so squirrely before? She couldn’t even remember at this point, all she could focus on was the dip of his collarbone and the flex of his shoulders as he braced himself against the counter. “How’d you even  _ get _ those?”

Looking around before leaning in with a sly smirk, he whispered, “Genetic engineering, I’m like… a super soldier or something…”

“Super  _ dweeb _ more like,” She laughed, bumping her entire body against him and rolling her eyes playfully, “Bet it’s not even that impressive…”

It was rather weak bait, she knew it, he knew it, but both of them were drunk enough to both be expecting  _ and _ be surprised when rather than answering Peter swept low and picked her up on his shoulder, so easily that he may as well have been lifting a kitten. She shrieked as she felt her feet leave the ground, both at the abruptness of him lifting her up and the fact that he was even lifting her up  _ at all.  _ If she was being honest, it kind of made her feel weak in the knees.

Not that she would ever say-

“Wow Parker,” She huffed, teasing smile on her lips, “Don’t know if I’d be able to stand seeing something like that…”

Right, the alcohol. Of course.

“You should see some of the other things that I can do,” He said, and even if he didn’t exactly  _ mean  _ that in the way it came out, that didn’t stop both their brains from short circuiting and to suddenly be  _ hyper  _ aware of exactly where their hands were resting, Peter’s on the small of her back and MJ’s on the sculpted muscle of his shoulder. It was enough to heat their faces even through everything else, but not quite enough for them to take their hands away, at least before a pair of headlights swept across the front windows of the house and a horn sounded twice.

“That’s uh… that’s our cab,” Peter said, “I-I think.”

“We should… we should probably get going.” MJ nodded, expecting him to let her down but instead feeling the peculiar bouncing in her stomach that always came with someone carrying you. She couldn’t say that it was what she had been expecting, but she wasn’t going to call out to him and tell him to let her go, the novelty of this all was… fun, at least for the moment. Though it did elicit some strange looks from those drunks and couples still out on the front lawn.

“Alright, you should let me down now,” She said once they reached the cab, grunting as Peter let her down slowly without any trouble at all, hard muscles tensing briefly at her stomach before they separated. Yep, definitely weak knees, and Peter knew it, hence the full body blush that he was sporting.

“Um, sorry about that,” He laughed, running a nervous hand through his hair, not quite looking at her for more than a split second, “If you wanna just get this one alone then I can… I can call another one.”

“What?” She asked, opening the door and shoving him in with both hands, “Just get in the cab, don’t make it weird.”

Perhaps the statement was more for her own benefit than his, but he still took it to heart, straightening up and staying respectfully on his side of the seat, shaking his head to try and clear some of the drunkenness away when he felt his thoughts wandering or his eyes starting to scan her profile.

She was doing much the same, both of them sitting so straight and so determined not to say anything that it took a minute before their driver cleared his throat, asking where they were actually supposed to be heading and snapping them out of their awkward stalemate. MJ’s place was on the way to Peter’s leaving them with a destination, a plan, and not much in the way of conversation. What they  _ did _ have however was an uncomfortable urge to touch again, even if it was just something as simple as carrying the other, or just being able to lean closer together.

It was about ten minutes into a twenty minute drive that Peter finally spoke up, flapping his mouth open and closed for a few seconds while he worked up the nerve, and though she’d been expecting one of the usual conversation fillers, any mark of the bullshit smalltalk that she shied away from so completely at school, she was genuinely surprised to hear the vulnerability in his voice when he asked, “Do… do you actually like me? Because… sometimes I feel like you don’t.”

“What?” She asked, turning nearly her entire body to face him, “Why would you think that?”

“I dunno, I just… sometimes I see you looking at me and you look really annoyed? Or I’m looking at you and you look at me and see me looking at you and then you kind of jump and walk away?” Peter shook his head. “I’m being stupid, forget about it.”

“I like you fine Peter,” She said, “If I  _ really _ didn’t like you you’d know about it. Why do you look at me so much?”

“Because you’re  _ really _ pretty,” He said, as though he couldn’t have been saying something simpler, “Why do you look at  _ me _ so much?”

“Because  _ you’re _ pretty,” She laughed, “I mean you’re still a massive dork, but I have  _ eyes _ you know. Sometimes I just look, that’s all.”

“Well I think you’re pretty cool, I don’t know if I ever told you.” He smiled, letting himself shift a little bit across to her and placing his hand down on the seat. “Like, you do whatever you want, you’re  _ super _ smart, you could probably kick the crap out of anyone who messed with you.”

“Came close to kicking Flash’s ass a couple times…”

“See? God, why  _ wouldn’t _ I be staring, you’re like… so awesome!”

MJ rolled her eyes, allowing herself one scoff of laughter, “I guess you’re really gonna make me tell you how cool you are too huh?”

“Oh, I mean you don’t  _ have _ to…”

“Shut up, I want to,” She laughed, “Didn’t you just say that I do whatever I want?”

He shrugged, but his amusement was obvious.

“Alright, you’re smart, you’ve apparently got arms like a fucking statue, I don’t think I’ve seen you be an asshole even  _ once,  _ even if someone might’ve deserved it.” She drummed her fingers along the seat, before she looked up at him. “And fine, you’re pretty hot and I think you’re pretty awesome too, happy?”

He nodded quickly with a goofy smile on his face, though when their eyes met they could feel that pulse again, the kind where the whole world seemed to fade away and you were left with what was right in front of you, nothing else. Much as they thought about ignoring it, neither of them had forgotten that moment when they were dancing, the uncertain flicks of their eyes to a set of lips that suddenly seemed very inviting, the telltale stutters in their chest from being so close together, they knew that if they were that close right now they’d be feeling the exact same thing.

Which was why with a swallow, they pushed down their fear, and their uncertainty, and started leaning in again. They were friends, of a sort at least, this wouldn’t be weird.

Would it?

Slowly, inching closer and closer as fast as he dared, Peter raised his hand and placed it on her forearm, feeling the softness of her skin as he ran his thumb back and forth. His breath hitched as she rested her palm against his cheek, leaning into the touch before she guided his head up, staring right into his eyes and asking a question that they both understood without a single word being shared.

As though they were afraid of shattering, they moved with the utmost care towards one another, eyes fluttering shut and shuddered breath being taken, until…

“Well we’re here!” The cab driver yelled, pulling up to the curb outside MJ’s apartment building. They sprang away from each other, back to that awkward stage of not looking at each other when they knew they should have just powered through, but this was untrod territory for the both of them, some nerves were to be expected, they knew that.

They knew that, but that didn’t mean they were  _ happy  _ with it.

“So…” Peter said, looking back at her and finding his eyes locking to the gentle line of her throat, “Looks like this is your stop huh?” 

“Looks… looks like it,” She said, swallowing as he readjusted himself and tensed his arm in the process, forcing herself to look away before she did something foolish.

_ Just do it, for fuck sake. _

“H-Hey, Peter?” He raised an eyebrow at her nervous tone, but when she looked into his eyes he could only see a steely determination. “My… My mom is out of town this weekend, at a conference. So…”

There was a silence between them that stretched to uncomfortable, MJ was almost certain that he was going to laugh until he passed out, before he reached into his pocket and grabbed his wallet faster than she’d seen anyone move ever, grabbing a handful of bills and tossing them through the slot to the driver. “Keep the change, sir!”

He was out of the cab before she could even blink, opening her door and waiting patiently for her to get out with him. When she looked up at him and saw his chest heaving with breath, his hair messy and his mouth stretched into the most hopeful smile that she could remember seeing in recent memory, she decided that was that.

“Alright then,” She said, taking his hand, “Let’s… Let’s get up there.”

****

Peter’s back hit the frame of the door, a breath being forced from his lips that was immediately swallowed by MJ’s own, the hand that wasn’t gripping the tight muscles of his back fumbling with her keys and unlocking the door. The door swung open when Peter pivoted and pushed her back into it, neither of them looking as she threw her keys into the living room and slammed the door behind them, lips crashing against the other’s while they cut a path down the hallway, heading for wherever they could guess MJ’s room was from here.

Pushed up against MJ’s door, Peter slid his hands down her sides and under the line of her shirt, palms resting on her hips and his thumbs brushing against her stomach. “Your skin is so soft,” He groaned, dipping his head to press a kiss to her neck, “God I love it.”

“Mmm…” For the first time as far as she could remember she was speechless, every time her mouth opened a moan escaping in the place of words. Her hands ran along the line of his abs, feeling the sculpted line of his pecs, and suddenly words didn’t really seem to matter all that much anymore. She could still taste sweet alcohol and coffee on his tongue when she sucked it into her mouth, swallowing up every moan she got from him with a smirk, the heat in her core only growing with every second that went by.

Pressed so tightly against him, it would have been impossible for her to miss the rapidly growing hardness pressing into her thigh, but when Peter took hold of her hips and pulled her even closer she couldn’t have predicted the moan that echoed in the hallway as they brushed together through their clothes. Two pairs of jeans maybe weren’t the best article of clothing to feel your partner through, but they were both feeling more sensitive than they could ever remember, a brick wall likely wouldn’t have been enough.

Once the spark of electricity passed by however they looked at each other, suddenly silent and thinking for the first time since he’d pressed her against the wall of the stairwell. “Are you… sure you want to do this?” Peter asked, breathing heavy and his fingers toying lightly with the hem of her shirt.

It was an out, MJ recognized an out when she saw one, but she was surprised it was  _ him _ giving it to her and not the other way around. She  _ was _ thinking about it, but it was impressive that he beat her to it. There are moments where you think about what it is that you want, the possible consequences of both paths and what you’re willing to do to deal with them.

Obviously, this was not one of those moments.

“I don’t know what I want to do,” She said, grinning as she pressed her palm against him and cupped him through his jeans, “But I do know that I don’t want to stop.”

She’d seen apex predators that looked less intimidating than he did when he smirked, hunger burning in his eyes and ragged breath echoing up from his lungs. When he tightened his hold around her hips and pulled her upwards, holding her close and wrapping her legs around him, she almost melted right then and there.

“Sounds good to me,” He said, reaching behind himself and opening the door, stepping through and closing it by slamming her back into it yet again.

“Ok… I don’t know… where this nerd strength... is coming from,” She said in between kisses, “But I love it.”

“I love that you love it,” He growled, scraping his teeth along her pulse point before biting down, her hands weaving into his hair and almost pulling it out by the root. Pulling his head up and pushing their lips together again, she pointed over his shoulder and mumbled something vaguely resembling ‘bed’ and ‘now’.

As he stood at the base of her bed, still holding her up with her legs wrapped around him, he took a moment to stare at her swollen lips, the already growing bruise on her neck, the sheer amount of  _ need _ shining in her eyes, and he knew right then that he would do  _ anything _ to see this again.

“Why are you stopping?” She asked, reaching up and pulling his shirt open, buttons scattering across the floor and baring his chest to her, “Come on, are you going to take that?”

“I liked this shirt…” He pouted, before narrowing his eyes with a catlike smirk. He tossed her onto the bed, back hitting and bouncing her up with a laugh, the brief view of her ceiling soon covered up with his face, kiss-swollen lips and sweat-damped hair filling her vision as she surged back in and started where they left off. When she reached up to touch his neck he grabbed her wrist, pressing it into the mattress gently but with enough weight behind it to know she couldn’t move it unless he let her. Turning her face to look up into his eyes, seeing the clear question in his eyes,  _ needing _ to know if this was ok, she nodded and swallowed deeply, sliding her other arm up until both wrists were lined up next to one another.

Cupping her cheek with his other hand, Peter leaned in and kissed her softly, the aggressiveness from before and turning into something almost protective, caring, MJ melting under his touch and gasping for air. He slid his hand down her neck, over her shirt to cup at what he’d had on his mind for far too long tonight, growling at the bra between him and what he wanted before he continued his journey south, hand slipping under her shirt and squeezing at the flexing muscles of her side.

“Just take it off,” She sighed, arching her back to show what she meant, “Please…”

He let go of her wrists, guiding her up to sit and peeling her shirt over her head, letting her unhook her bra on her own before he was left to stare in awe. She’d done it so quickly and so naturally that MJ didn’t quite realize what she’d done until she noticed he wasn’t touching her anymore, heat rushing up to her face and racing down to heat the rest of her body as she fought the urge to cover herself.

“It’s no big deal, they’re nothing special…” She said, starting to look away before he turned her face to look at him, amazed at how his eyes seemed to shine in the dark.

“Yeah,” He said, resting his hand on the back of her neck and running his fingers through the small, soft hairs, “They are…”

“Well…” She blushed, gulping and flicking her head at his chest. “Go on, make it… make it equal.”

Peter shrugged off his shirt, pulling his arms through the rolled up sleeves and tossing it behind him, and in that moment whatever hesitation MJ had left evaporated so completely it could barely be said to have existed at all. She didn’t so much move closer as leap into him, his back hitting the mattress and her lips working along the line of his throat, darting lower with each peck until she reached his chest, taking one look up at him before dragging her tongue across his nipple, grinning at the full body shudder that wracked him before he laughed. 

“That felt way better than I thought it would,” He said, brushing his hand through her hair. She placed a kiss to the underside of his pec, breathing hard to herself as she ran her hands across his skin, committing every inch of his taut muscle to memory, her heart leaping in her chest everytime he tensed or flexed, abs like steel under her lips. 

“No to, ah, break up your rhythm,” Peter sighed, sucking in a breath every time her tongue glided across his chest, “But I ah… oh screw it.”

Deciding that words weren’t going to cooperate with him, he wrapped his arms around her chest and rolled them over so he was straddling her again, fingers hooking in the waistband of her jeans. “Do you mind if I..?”

She nodded wordlessly, lifting her hips so he could pull down her zip and start sliding her pants down past her thighs, pressing a kiss to the back of her knee when he lifted her legs up to pull them off the rest of the way. A moment passed between them, her trying to get used to the image of him kneeling between her legs, him trying to get used to  _ being _ between her legs, before she reached up and threaded her fingers through his hair, taking a breath and exhaling it slowly as she pulled him down, their eyes locked all the way until his lips tickled her stomach, Peter immediately understanding what she wanted and doing his best to make it a reality.

“I’m sorry,” He said, trailing kisses downwards until he reached her underwear, hesitating for a moment before placing one over her still covered core. “I… don’t really know what I’m doing…”

“I don’t care,” She gasped, that one kiss shooting a bolt of electricity right through her, “Just keep doing it.  _ Please…” _

Looping his fingers in the band of her underwear, smiling at the feeling of her hand on top of his, he pulled her underwear to the side and dragged her towards him, an open mouthed kiss to her core making all the breath in her lungs escape in one long shudder, nuzzling his nose against her clit and humming in delight. He may have had no idea what he was doing, but he figured that he could just try out what felt right and keep doing what worked out, apparently he’d made a good couple of first guesses, and he was  _ good _ at reading people. With every swipe of his tongue her thighs tensed around him, every bump of his nose against her clit made her chest swell, and when he dipped lower and pushed his tongue in as far as he could to taste as much of her as he could she almost ripped the hair out of his scalp. 

Ok, so maybe he’d done some research before, he was a teenage boy what else was he going to do?

Wetting one of his fingers on his tongue, he stroked from the tip of her clit down to where she needed him, rising so that she could look into his eyes properly before he pushed his finger inside slowly, releasing his own needy groan around her clit as he sucked deeply. 

MJ’s eyes rolled back in her head, grip tightening in his hair so much that it  _ had _ to be hurting, but if it was then he wasn’t telling her to stop because of it. Every gently pump of his finger was accompanied with that magic tongue dancing along her most sensitive point, sparks of pleasure turning into a wildfire that threatened to engulf her entire being, almost taking her to the edge before she tapped the top of his head, more slapped it in her need for him to listen to her.

“Stop… stop…”

He pulled back instantly, eyebrows raised and his mouth already open in a question of concern before she waved her hand, taking a few moments to get her breathing under control before she gasped, “Didn’t… do anything wrong…”

“What then?” He asked, his relief obvious, “MJ?”

“I want… I…” She squeezed her eyes shut, kicking herself that  _ now _ of all times was when she got nerves. “You know…”

“Oh.” His tone was even, overly surprised, as though he hadn’t been hard and straining against his jeans for the last ten minutes. Squeezing her thigh as softly as he could, he asked, “Are you sure?”

“Don’t make me ask twice Parker.”

The lump that had formed in his throat took two swallows to be conquered, his heart racing faster by the second as he reached into his pocket and pulled out his wallet, finding the little plastic square that he’d kept hidden for months without a hope of using it. Tossing his wallet off to the side and stripping his pants from his legs, he realized she was watching him with rapt attention as he stood there in his underwear, trying to hype himself up for a step that honestly felt ridiculous to be nervous about at this point.

“I won’t laugh,” MJ said, “Come on, it’ll be fine.”

Peter nodded to himself, breathing out once before he pulled them down in one fell movement and kicked them away, standing completely straight with his eyes clamped shut, willing himself to untense and finally look over at her. It was dark, but he could still see the calming smile on her face, the genuine warmth that he was starting to realize he was liking more and more, and suddenly he didn’t feel so nervous anymore.

“Come on loser, we don’t have all night.”

“Yeah we do.” Peter grinned, tearing open the pack and fumbling with the right way to put it on, it was dark and his penis wasn’t a one to one recreation of a health class banana, but eventually he managed to get it on properly. He started crawling back onto the bed before she held her hand up, instinctively freezing in place as she looked up and down, before crooking her finger at him.

“Alright, I’ve got that memorized, come on then.”

He laughed, positioning himself above her and looking down at her, “Do you  _ ever _ stop?”

“No I do not, do you?”

“Not usually but it’s something I’m working on.” Kissing the tip of her nose, he took himself in hand and positioned himself where he needed to be, squeezing her side with his free hand and asking, “Ready?”

“As I’ll ever be,” She replied, tone shaking near the end and her teeth clamping around her bottom lip. Peter nodded, reaching up and linking their hands together as he pushed in, as slowly as he could possibly manage without making the earth grind to a halt. The bones in his hand creaked when she tightened her hold, a whine rising in her throat as he pushed further in, massaging her side and feathering kisses along her cheek and down her neck, trying to find any way to make her more comfortable that he possibly could. 

After what seemed to be an eternity their hips were flush together, both of them releasing the groans that had been building up in their chests since they started and resting their foreheads against each other. Peter was desperate to start, but he knew enough that doing that without her go-ahead in a situation like this was, in a  _ best case _ scenario, a complete dick move. 

“Alright, you can move,” She whispered, reaching up and grasping the back of his neck, “Just… do it slowly, ok?”

“Y-Yeah…” Slowly pulling out, he began rocking his hips just slightly faster than he’d moved before, but when she let out an impatient growl he decided that perhaps he’d been a little  _ too _ exact in her wording of slowly, speeding up until the bed was starting to slowly rock beneath them. Her nails dug red lines into his skin, his teeth on edge from the sting and sending another spark right down to his crotch, another breathless gasp being choked off as he clamped his teeth around her shoulder once more.

Her initial discomfort had slowly turned into something much more pleasant, the dull ache that had come from his initial entrance fading away into the background, every thrust of his hips jolting something incredible through her body, her legs slowly wrapping themselves around him and urging him deeper with every thrust.

“Oh God…” She moaned, “F-Faster, Peter!”

Hearing his name moaned in his ear set something off inside him, tensing his thighs and making him snap his hips, listening to every moan and curse that rolled off her tongue, trying to memorize where to do what to drive her even half as crazy as she was making him. 

_ “Fuck…”  _ He gasped, more than aware of how soon these first encounters tended to end and just hoping that he could hold on long enough to not be  _ completely  _ disappointing. Reaching down between them, fumbling blindly until he found her clit with his fingers, he rubbed furiously as he approached his own limit, trying to push her over before he tumbled right over.

Her entire body seemed to try to retract in on itself as soon as he started, thrashing wildly underneath him as she threw her head back and didn’t so much moan as outright  _ scream _ into the wall, wrapping her arms around him so tightly that he could barely breath between her breasts, now hoping that he could finish them both off before he outright  _ suffocated.  _ It would have been impossible to miss the moment that she climaxed, moaning throatily into his hair and pulling him in one final time with her legs. 

Peter had done a lot of amazing things, fought Captain America, lifted up buses, he’d pushed more or less an entire  _ building  _ off of himself, but the moment that MJ tightened around him he knew there was no amount of strength on earth that could have stopped him from burying himself as deeply as he could one final time and letting himself go, gasping into her chest as he finally,  _ gloriously _ found his release, heart hammering so hard that the neighbors downstairs may very well have heard it. After what seemed to be forever, the universe passing and dying around them in their shared existence of pleasure, they both collapsed into an exhausted heap, doing nothing more except laying there and catching up on the breath that had been stolen from the both of them in their last moments.

“Still… a dork…” MJ panted, laughing shakily to herself, “But… not bad… Parker…”

“Not so bad… yourself…” Pushing himself onto one elbow, they took one look at each other before they both collapsed into laughter, Peter rolling onto his back to stop himself from crushing her anymore than he already had. They could barely look at each other, they definitely couldn’t  _ believe  _ that they’d done any of what they’d just done, so they settled for laughing and weaving their hands together, staring up into the darkness of the ceiling until they died down to just giggling.

“You should probably take that off,” She said, poking at his thigh, “Just… tie it up so we don’t step in it tomorrow.”

“Yes ma’am.” He followed her directions, aiming for where he’d guessed a trash can was but not managing to get it very far from his position on the bed. He was fairly sure it was out of stepping range, though this wasn’t the first time that he would be wrong about something in his very eventful life. “So… now what?”

“Now you shut up,” She said, cuddling into his side and resting her cheek against her pillow, “You’re cuter when you shut up.”

“You’re cuter when you  _ don’t.” _

“Whatever,” She scoffed, smile clear in her voice, “Night Parker.”

“...Night MJ,” He replied, taking one last look up at the ceiling before he closed his eyes. 

_ No regrets here. _

****

“Ok, so maybe we might have both done something we might have regretted.” 

“Oh really?” MJ asked, leaning her chin on her palm, not even bothering to keep the blanket held up anymore, “Enlighten me on what  _ that  _ could have been.”

“Well, right now I guess I’m regretting not throwing that condom further…” Grimacing at her total lack of a response, he rubbed the back of his neck, still feeling the welts left behind by her nails. “Ok, bad joke, I-I get that…”

“God… how could we be so stupid?” She let herself drift onto her back, one hand rubbing at her stomach and the other pinching the bridge of her nose. “Last time I ever drink that much.”

“Same,” Peter sighed, sitting up and leaning against the bed, knees pulled up loosely to his chest and his fingers drumming along his knees, “Are you… Are you ok?”

She didn’t answer at first, and his nerves were starting to get worse because of it, but when she reached over and flicked the top of his head with her finger he felt a weight lift off his shoulders. “Relax Parker, you didn’t… you didn’t do anything wrong, you did something  _ stupid _ but that was kind of a group effort, I can’t give you hell for that.”

“Still though, I… I’m sorry about all this, I didn’t mean for this to happen.”

“Don’t say sorry, let’s just… move on, how’s that sound? At least I’ve got the whole weekend to lay in bed now, I think I’m gonna need it.”

In spite of himself, or maybe because he heard the small hints of humor as she finished, he found his shoulders shaking with repressed laughter, blocking his mouth against the back of his hand to keep it from slipping out, but it definitely wasn’t enough to keep her from noticing.

“Oh I  _ know _ you’re not laughing at me right now, that would just be…”

“I’m not, I’m not! I swear,” He laughed, letting the back of his head hit the mattress and his laughter to echo off the walls, “It’s just… I don’t know, it’s just kind of funny when you think about it, right? I don’t think anyone thought this was how it would happen for  _ either _ of us, you know?”

MJ snorted, resting on her side and staring at his back, “I’m laughing about this because I want to, not because you’re making me.”

Alone together, in the privacy of her room and hidden away from whatever reputations or judgements they had at school, they allowed themselves a few moments just to themselves, to laugh and smile at the pure absurdity of what they’d done, the sheer incomprehensiveness of their actions, even if they hadn’t quite realized how inevitable they really had been.

Unfortunately, all things have to come to an end, and they recognized the end when their headaches escalated from annoying to almost blinding, MJ’s eyes pinched so tightly closed that it  _ hurt,  _ and Peter’s skull pounding with the sounds of the city even worse than it usually was, what could have been distantly ignored car horns and people shouting almost deafening on his already fragile senses. 

“I think it’s time you leave,” MJ groaned, rolling over in bed and burying her face into her pillow, “I need to just… sleep forever and let this end.”

“No arguments there,” Peter said, standing up shakily and squeezing his temples. He couldn’t leave just yet without making sure of  _ one _ thing however. “It was… it was good though, right?”

There was another silence in which the only sound was the shifting of her blankets as she turned to look at him, before her voice came to him in a deathly calm tone, “I swear, if you don’t leave through the front door soon, you’ll be leaving through my window.”

“Alright alright alright! I’m sorry just… let me get my clothes...”

She was almost ready to fall asleep again, before his voice roused her once again, much to her annoyance. “Hey MJ?”

“Yes Peter?” She asked, all ready to deliver another ultimatum before she recognized what was in his hands, and once she saw that she couldn’t help but laugh.

“Do you have a jacket or something I can borrow?” He asked, holding up the ruined shirt, buttons scattered across the floor, “Because… I don’t know if I can walk home in this.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fucking has occurred. Fucking will occur again >:3c
> 
> Thank you for all the kudos, it really means a lot! I'm writing without a plan here, but I do have ideas in mind just so you know lol  
> Hoping to keep this up weekly or at least bi-weekly (This one isn't as heavy as my Persona 5 fic so I think I might be able to follow through on that), so if you can please comment and tell me what you liked, or even just to give some encouragement, every little bit helps keep this story alive :3
> 
> Also follow me on [Twitter](https://twitter.com/AssidoMina), I'm disappointing.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for your wonderful comments! They kept me going through this chapter :3

_Crap. Crap. Crap. Crap._

Peter’s thoughts had taken on a rather repetitive tone since he’d stepped out of MJ’s apartment, an awkward goodbye slipping off of his tongue and an equally awkward reply echoing from her place at the door. 

_“Thanks for… um… the hoodie.”_

_“Yeah! Yeah… thanks for…”_

And that was it, she’d all but slammed the door, not that he could judge given he took off running as soon as she took one step back. It was stupid, the whole situation was stupid, and they were only _now_ starting to realize just _how_ stupid it was.

“Ok Pete, time to do some thinking,” He muttered, looking around briefly before slapping himself across the cheek, pushing the front door of MJ’s apartment block open and stepping out onto the street. He felt strange, stepping out wearing a hoodie that was just a hair too long for him, but it sure beat marching through the streets with all the buttons on his shirt tucked away into his back pocket and his bare chest on display for the entire world to see. He hadn’t even bothered to look into MJ’s mirror, he must have looked like a mess.

“So, looks like I’m officially _that guy,”_ He said to himself, “Didn’t really think I’d end up walking home in clothes that aren’t mine, but here we are. Just gotta… think carefully, and try to think up a way to handle the rest of this that doesn’t involve MJ killing me. Or severely injuring me. Or just not talking to me again, I think that might be the worst outcome.”

_With her taste still lingering on his lips, the image of her hair splayed out around her and the feverish chant of his name in his e-_

“Stop that.” Another slap. “This is the same MJ who wouldn’t give me the time of day until a few months ago, God knows what made her open up but I might have just gone and screwed _that_ all up. Which sucks, because she’s genuinely pretty cool!” He blushed. “And… pretty attractive. Pretty really attractive. Pretty really _really_ attractive.”

Holding his arm up to slow traffic, he jogged across the road to cut through the park, somewhere he could talk to himself and not seem like he was absolutely out of his mind. Not that he wasn’t afraid that he _actually_ was by now.

“She mustn’t have _hated_ it at the very least, pretty sure she’d make sure to tell me if she didn’t.”

 _I like you fine Peter, if I_ really _didn’t like you you’d know about it._

“See, perfect! And saying she likes me, she must _at least_ think we’re friendly? Right? I really don’t think she would have let me do what we did if she didn’t.” Peter rubbed at his chin, scrunching his brow up. “Then again I was surprised whenever we said more than ten words to each other, this is kind of a leap compared to that.”

You’re _pretty. I mean you’re still a massive dork, but I have_ eyes _you know. Sometimes I just look, that’s all._

“Really wish I could remember this all at once and just get it over with.” Shaking his head to clear some of the fog, he only succeeded in jolting his hungover brain inside his too small skull and making himself see stars. Bracing himself against a bench, he took a moment to regain his bearings and think over her words. “So she thinks I’m attractive too, but that doesn’t mean we were going to do something like _this._ I’ve thought Ned’s cute for like, _years_ and we never ended up doing _anything_ like this.”

_Though I’ve never really drank that much before, and I’m guessing neither has she. So that would probably explain it._

“Wait, how’d I even end up getting drunk in the first place? I thought my metabolism was too…” It was then that he screwed his eyes shut, smacking his lips and finally recognizing a taste fainter than the acrid taste of vodka and the pleasant (and anxiety inducing) reminder of how he spent last night. _Coffee._ “Spiders get drunk on caffeine. That must have messed me up. That’s… weird, I should write that down.”

He, unfortunately, didn’t have a pen and paper with him, but when he looked up to the sky in disappointment he was surprised to see that he was standing in front of his apartment building, wondering how exactly he’d managed to walk all the way from MJ’s without realizing fully where he was going. Maybe he’d been crapped on by a radioactive homing pigeon too, his life was weird enough that he was at least considering it. Taking the stairs one at a time, shrugging his shoulders to settle the unfamiliar hoodie over himself, he tried to keep his mind in the present and the near future, rather than dropping back to what he could remember of the previous night and all the experimentation within. That could wait until later, when all he had to worry about was how much bed sheet he was going to have to stuff between his teeth to stop himself from waking up the entire neighborhood.

Though, there was that traitorous part of his mind that he just couldn’t clamp down on quickly enough, wondering if MJ was going to be doing the same thing.

“Peter?” Came a voice from the kitchen as he opened the door, and _oh shit, oh fuck,_ this was _not_ what he needed right now. “Peter? Honey?”

“Y-Yeah May, I’m here!” Tightening the cords around his neck, he had to hope that whatever signs had been left over from his little misadventure were all _below_ shoulder height, really regretting not looking into a mirror at least once to check out the extent of his disaster. Bunching the hood up and scrunching his shoulders up, he walked around the corner and plastered on his most apologetic smile in preparation for what he was certain was going to be Aunt May’s quiet disapproval.

She turned around at the sound of his footsteps, releasing a breath and setting down the pan that she’d been scrambling eggs in, marching over and wrapping him in her arms before he could so much as utter a ‘sorry’. “I sent you three messages last night, I was getting worried.”

“Hmm?” Peter looked up at her, patting around with his hand until he pulled his phone out from his back pocket, guilt only piling on even more when he could see all three of said messages displayed prominently right on his home screen. “Oh I’m so sorry May! Everything got really heavy last night I forgot to check my phone, I’m sorry if I worried you or-”

“It’s alright Peter, it’s alright.” She smiled, patting his shoulder. “I know that you’re a growing young man, and you want your independence, which I _love_ by the way, but just remember to check your phone ok? Your aunt worries about you sometimes.”

He huffed a laugh, smile stretching his cheeks as he shook his head. “You’re _always_ worrying about me, but I guess I can’t blame you.”

“That’s right mister, now…” She narrowed her eyes, reaching out and pushing his collar to the side with one finger. “Peter what happened?”

_Red alert, sirens, fucking defcon one!_

“I, uh… what?”

“You have…” He _really_ didn’t like the way her tone was so… even. “There’s a bruise on your neck. Did something happen last night?”

“I…” _Think you idiot, how are you this bad at thinking on the spot?_ “Someone spilled beer on me last night.”

“And that… bruised you?”

“Well uh…” _Come on, come on._ “N-Ned said that I could get a change of clothes from his place, and I… figured that I could save some money by just swinging there…”

“And then?” He couldn’t tell if she was believing him or humoring him, but in the interest of not self-destructing he was going to believe it was the former. 

“I thought I heard someone screaming and… it turned out to just be a cat…” _Aha! Perfect!_ “And while I was distracted I flew into a pole.”

The only thing that was embarrassing Peter more than the fact that he was having to lie to his aunt about why exactly there was a bruise on the delicate space between his jaw and his collarbone was that the only thing he was lying about was the date this all happened. The spider sense hadn’t gotten rid of _all_ his clumsiness unfortunately.

There was a small smile playing at the corner of her mouth, and he was going to just accept that as a victory. “You got distracted by a cat and flew headfirst into a pole?”

“I’m not exactly proud of it!” He blushed. “And just smell me! I smell terrible!”

“You… do smell like a dorm room at NYU,” She laughed, “Fine, I’ll believe you on this, but just be careful from now on, ok? I just want you to be as safe as you can.”

He had a feeling that she wasn’t completely talking about his swinging abilities, but he’d take it. It would give him some time to prepare for the _inevitable_ talk she was going to insist on once she figured she’d given him enough space. With a quick kiss to her cheek and a squeeze around her shoulders he all but power walked to his bedroom, closing the door behind him and collapsing onto his bed in one turning movement. He wasn’t lying when he said that he didn’t smell great, the two of them never _had_ gotten the chance to wash off the beer after all, but he just needed to take a moment to scream into his pillow before he could call the night _truly_ over.

But there was that thing that was bothering him, and he figured it would be better to get it done now rather than be surprised by it later, or even worse, have someone _else_ be surprised by it later. Standing up and padding over to his closet, tapping the dusty glass of his mirror, he stared at the heavy bags under his eyes and scrubbed a hand through his mass of unruly curls and knots, so far past messy that they looked like he’d grabbed a live wire at some point during the day.

But that wasn’t the end of it, he knew that, he’d felt it every time the hoodie shifted and dragged the fabric across skin that was so much more sensitive than it normally was. So, with an over-dramatic sigh and a tensing of his biceps, he reached over his head and pulled the hoodie off completely, dropping his ruined shirt to the ground behind him and having the secrets of his night out revealed completely.

There was the obvious hickey that had been so prominently on display, and _wow_ there was _no way_ she believed him about flying into a pole. But all thoughts of embarrassment vacated the already hazardous premises of his mind when he saw the other, smaller two just further along his neck, along with an honest to God _bite mark_ right into the meat of his shoulder. Turning around, he wasn’t shocked to see the nail marks in the back of his neck, _those_ he had already felt that morning, but the rest of his back was a surprising canvas of red lines, all crisscrossed and still raised.

“Oh,” Peter whispered to himself, pressing his fingers to one of the angriest looking lines, “Sh-”

****

“-it!” MJ hissed, letting the pressure off from the largest mark on her neck. And it was large. Noticeable. Almost the same shade of purple as the streak in her hair. “I swear to God, if mom sees this I’m going to kill him. Well… she might kill me first I guess.”

She’d gotten into the shower not long after Peter had left, all awkward goodbyes and stammered apologies, but even a stream of almost scalding hot water couldn’t compare to the sting that she could feel in her shoulders, and across her neck. _He’d_ looked like a disaster, and given how it had taken her a while to be able to stand up properly she was certain that she looked exactly the same, maybe even worse.

Even after the two of them had done their little reminiscing session once their shock and horror had worn off, she still couldn’t quite compute how the night _started_ with the two of them sharing a few sentences of semi-awkward conversation and _ended_ with him slamming her so deeply into the mattress that there was probably an imprint of the back of her head on the floor. She knew that _she_ wasn’t the type of person that did this sort of thing (Not that there was anything _wrong_ with that, not at all, there just wasn’t much incentive for her to _try)_ and though she’d definitely been surprised by him both last night and this morning, it was glaringly obvious that it wasn’t his style either.

Not that it couldn’t easily be if he wanted it to, she wasn’t the only one who’d noticed how he’d gone from scrawny little asthmatic to needing to adjust his shirts by at least two sizes and _still_ finding them straining. Ok, maybe she’d noticed a little bit earlier than everyone else, what could she say? She’d already admitted that she had eyes, and maybe her attention _had_ been somewhat more divided over the last few months, but that was only natural! He was a strangely charming dork with muscles, who wouldn’t go weak at the knees?

Well, she’d seen that he _was_ kind of his own worst enemy, she could swear he’d almost busted a hole through the roof of his locker when she came up behind him to ask about the next practice, he hadn’t stopped rubbing the bruise on the back of his head for hours afterwards. If that was how he reacted to a random girl coming up to talk to him then she couldn’t imagine him going out to try and play. He _had_ managed to convince Liz to go to homecoming with him, a move that literally _no one_ had predicted, but he’d managed to squander even that when he stood her up on the same night her father got arrested. That… was kind of a black mark, one that not even _she_ could find it in herself to make fun of him for, at least not more than once, she could only imagine what it had done for his reputation.

Scratch that, she knew what it had done, because she was good at noticing things like that, and the prognosis waaaaaaaaaaaaaaas not good. Standing up one of the most beautiful, popular girls in school was, and remains, complete social suicide. 

Which only brings her right back to the start: How, in the name of God and all Her creations, had she decided in her inebriated state that the only thing that felt better inside her than vodka was Peter Parker? Sure, she found him attractive, no duh, but just because you think someone’s attractive doesn’t mean you’re going to _sleep_ with them!

Though while the night had been good, annoyingly good in fact, what was really pissing her off right now was the fact that this could just about torpedo any traces of what little friendship they’d been able to scrape together over the last few months. She’d even moved two spaces closer to them from her end of the table, that sort of progress wasn’t to be laughed at!

There were reasons this was going to blow up in their faces, many reasons in fact, but perhaps it was best to start with the most obvious:

  1. MJ doesn’t date, period, no exceptions. It’s just not for her.
  2. Even if she did, they’ve only been talking for more or less two months, and it’s been _pretty_ sporadic. She’d barely consider calling someone a friend at that point, she definitely wouldn’t date someone she didn’t even really know all that much.
  3. While she’s pretty eager to just treat this as a one off mistake that she’ll only revisit at night when her mother isn’t home, she has a feeling that Peter isn’t the type to forget about it. She’d seen the way he’d been staring wistfully at Liz for a _year_ without saying anything, if she has to deal with that she might actually die.
  4. Even if he managed to pluck up the courage to ask her out, and she would consider it brave given the vibes she was aware she gives off to everyone around her, there’s the small matter of points 1 and 2. All this is to say that no matter how long it takes, eventually he’s going to get his heart broken, and any hope of friendship will go up in flames so high that celestial beings could use them as smoke signals.



So that was her, staring at the thin indents of what had been his teeth in her skin, finding her mood souring more and more as time went on. What a fun way to spend her day, on top of the headache that was barely being held back by a fistful of aspirin.

The best thing for her to do would be to drink an ocean of water, lay in bed for the entire day and try to distract herself from freaking out that she’d lost her virginity in a moment of complete spontaneity, as stupid as she considered the idea of virginity anyway. Unfortunately, the very act of trying not to think was just making her think even more, and as had been the case an annoying amount of the time over the last two months, her thoughts found themselves travelling to a certain clumsy idiot who had managed to flip from being distractingly suave to slipping on his own used condom within the span of a few hours. 

The difference in how he’d been acting was doing a real number on her, because even with his legs up in the air and his face the absolute _epitome_ of shame and embarrassment, there was still something… disarmingly charming about him, and it was _really_ starting to piss her off. That completely innocent look on his face, as if he couldn’t _possibly_ believe that something like this could have possibly happened to _him, him_ of all people. Coming from anyone else that looked like him she would have thought that it was all complete bullshit, a transparent act from some amateur player who acted like butter wouldn’t melt in their mouth, but him? She knew enough about him by now, she knew his story, he really, truly didn’t think that this could have been possible.

And the thought was just… so _perplexing._ Sure, he had an overwhelming tendency to put his foot in his mouth, she could count on two hands the amount of times that it happened in a single day, but the way he rambled and managed to somehow speak over himself was cute, in his own way. He was smart, when he wasn’t being an idiot, and he was dependable, when he wasn’t running off, that was the entire reason she’d decided to try and be (God forbid) _friendly_ with him. Even if he looked like Shrek mated with the Onceler _someone_ would have surely found him attractive eventually, he was just too… noticeable, to not notice.

But he didn’t look like some weird abomination, not even close. His face was soft, kind, like he couldn’t possibly tell a lie even though that was in no way true, he’d told plenty of lies he was just terrible at it. He looked _nice,_ with his neat little clothes and his hair that was always styled _just so,_ give him slightly more confidence and less clumsiness and he could probably break hearts just based on that alone, some may have been surprised but with all the observing that she did, MJ hadn’t been overly shocked that Liz had agreed to go out with him.

Of course that wasn’t even getting into the obvious muscle that he’d packed on over the last year, he could hide it with as many long sleeved shirts and sweaters as he wanted, but in gym class in those shorts and that t-shirt it was… _distracting._ The first time he’d stood up and stretched his arm above his head she could swear her heart skipped, but then he’d taken a dodgeball to the side of the face and tripped over at least two benches and the spell had been broken. 

She hadn’t been lying when she’d said she had eyes, she was only human.

What she _really_ should have been prepared for yet was most certainly _not_ was the fact that those muscles would be attached to _other_ muscles, and that _those_ muscles would be… well, as muscular as they were. She wasn’t ashamed (In general but especially in this instance) that her pulse had quickened when she’d felt his back through his shirt, felt the shift of what felt like stone with every breath. Her mouth had gone outright _dry_ when she’d pulled his shirt open, seeing abs she absolutely could have used as a cheesegrater, and feeling her wrists trapped together under his hand, all that tense muscle above her and that feeling of care just _pouring_ out of his eyes was almost enough to end her right then and there.

He’d also been almost criminally good in bed, not that she had any sort of sample pool to compare against, but that was something she _definitely_ wasn’t going to think about right now, she was too pissed off to allow herself those minutes of panting under the sheets, especially since it had barely even been two hours since he’d left. 

Nevermind, she was _definitely_ thinking of it now, and that was just pissing her off. She was supposed to be in control, nothing except aloof and disconnected from everything else around her, she wasn’t supposed to be… turning to jelly over the thought of some _boy._ She was supposed to be spending this weekend studying, or reading, or proving someone wrong over the internet, she was most _certainly_ not supposed to be remembering how he’d lifted her up and braced her against the door like she weighed _nothing._ She wasn’t supposed to be thinking about how messy his hair had been, the flex of his biceps as he shifted above her, the way that he’d pinched his eyes closed and groaned so deeply that she felt it in her chest when he finally came. 

And she absolutely wasn’t supposed to be heading back to bed with twitching fingers and a scowl, but this weekend was just determined not to go the way she thought it would.

****

“God she’s going to hate me,” Peter said to himself, laying in bed and wiping the sweat from his brow, still breathing hard with her name on his lips. He’d long since had a shower, taken his dinner into his room under the excuse of having a headache, and in no time at all his mind had started to wonder as it so treacherously did. Thoughts of a hand in his hair, legs around his head, nails down his back. Of a face so beautiful in its closed off apathy and absolutely breathtaking in its open mouthed rapture. Of his name being called in a voice so impossibly perfect that hearing it even once could be considered evidence of God.

It didn’t erase the instinctive shame that he felt panting his release into his mattress, the rush through his body both fantastic and utterly nothing compared to what he’d already had, a bittersweet cocktail that was only succeeding in making him wish for something that wasn’t going to be happening again, for a multitude of reasons. And as much as he hadn’t wanted to, he’d made a small list of some of the biggest reasons, and come to the conclusion that he’d just made the biggest mistake he could ever make for the _both_ of them.

  1. He wasn’t blind to the fact that he hadn’t been… highly regarded in the last few months, and though he couldn’t exactly remember all of the party he doubted that he’d really managed to turn around every single person’s opinion on him. It was hard enough being _friends_ with a loser, but _sleeping_ with them? He didn’t imagine that would end well for MJ. Maybe she wouldn’t care about her reputation, he honestly didn’t expect her to, that was one of the things that he liked about her, but that only left other avenues through which he could disappoint her.
  2. They’d only become something approaching friends over the last two months, and something like this could just ruin everything. They were just too… different. She was beautiful, smart, she could shut up an entire room with just a clearing of her throat and a single sentence. And he was… him, someone so forgettable that he had to go and jump off of buildings and get shot at just to feel like something approaching interesting. So, there was a gap that seemed a little too wide for a bridge there.
  3. In the miraculous case that _somehow_ her reputation was intact, and _somehow_ she didn’t care about their differences, what if she _somehow_ decided that she wanted something more? Now we were talking pure hypotheticals, in a world where actual _Norse Gods_ were proven to exist this was still somehow in the realm of the impossible, but there was still that miniscule chance that bore thinking about. And that minuscule chance that there could be something more was doomed to end in her disappointment as well.



Like a snake devouring its own tail, the reason for point 3 looped around to the reason for point 1: Liz Toomes. In the span of only a few months, he’d managed to ruin the life of a smart, beautiful, _wonderful_ young woman who had somehow decided to give him a chance, and that was something that had really stuck with him when he lay awake at night thinking about the things that he’d done wrong. He couldn’t help thinking that if he’d just not gotten involved with her, if she’d been able to find someone smarter, someone more dependable, someone _better,_ maybe things wouldn’t have gone so bad for her.

He still would have had to throw her father in jail, assuming that he was even able to find out who he was, and since he’d only found out on accident he wasn’t certain that he _would_ have been able to find him. But assuming that he had, that he would have managed to do the leg work and prevent a still decent man from doing an indecent thing, at least he wouldn’t have humiliated her so completely on one of the worst nights of her life. She could have spent it distracted with someone else, instead of sitting with her friends going through all the ideas for what could have been wrong with her. She could have had someone who held her hand through the trial, through the humiliation, instead of someone who couldn’t even stand to look at her lest he break down in guilt. 

So, no, for all the reasons outlined above, the reasons that he had considered and gone over a thousand times in his head until he felt he was going insane, it was safe to say that he wasn’t really in any condition to date. He wasn’t looking to let loose whatever spirit of misfortune that ruled his life onto another innocent person.

Of course, if she just wanted to be friends, there was a high chance that he was going to piss her off one too many times by putting his foot in his mouth one too many times, so just about every outcome was nothing less than absolute shit really. What a joke this was all turning out to be.

Clamping his eyes shut and draping his arm across his face, he tried to find at least some measure of peace in sleep. It didn’t come easy.

****

Matter of fact it didn’t come at all, MJ’s roof swimming in the dark as she stared up at it with tired eyes, so many thoughts rushing through her mind that she could hardly hear anything else. The orgasm hadn’t done much to calm her down, if anything it had made things worse, now she was feeling wired _and_ annoyed.

“God what does it even _matter?”_ She asked herself, rolling her eyes in the dark, “It doesn’t _have_ to mean anything can’t we just be _mature_ about it?”

The idea of losing the connection they shared, as tenuous as it was, was stressing her out more than she would have liked. Maybe it was because she’d never really had many friends, maybe there was something about _him_ compared to all the _other_ people she could spend time with, she didn’t know, all she knew was that _this_ was the connection that she cared about. 

“God, you get half a friend and suddenly you’re a mess again,” She sighed, reaching over for her phone and squinting her eyes as it lit up the darkness. His number was right there waiting for her, all she had to do was press call and they would be able to sort this out like the adults they were aspiring to be.

****

But he couldn’t do it, not with his finger hovering barely a hair away from the screen, breath heavy in his lungs and his heart pounding in his ears. MJ would understand if he wanted to talk right? She likely had just as many questions as he did, it would just make things even more awkward if they didn’t acknowledge that it had happened at all, wouldn’t it?

****

But what if he didn’t want to talk about it? Their goodbyes that morning were the exact picture of awkwardness, for all she knew he probably just wanted to put all of this behind them, didn’t want to think about this at all. She couldn’t really blame him for that but…

“Goddammit,” MJ groaned, tossing the phone back onto her bed, “I don’t know what I want to do…”

****

“I’ll talk to her properly about this… soon… I swear…” Peter turned over, putting his back to his phone and closing his eyes. It was a long time until he fell asleep, just as it was a long time before she fell asleep too. And all the while, the grim spectre of Monday was hanging over their heads, the thought of having to see each other again after what they’d done…

No, there was no way they were going to be able to be normal. But when was anything normal anymore?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here we go! New chapter, and they aren't dealing well lol  
> Hopefully they talk things out, it'd really be dumb if they danced around obvious attraction wouldn't it? Ha. Ha ha. Ha.
> 
> Once again, thank you for all your wonderful comments, I get so happy every time I read them again, let's keep it up! Each of them is another shot of life into this story!
> 
> Follow me on [Twitter](https://twitter.com/AssidoMina) if you like dumb shit


	4. Chapter 4

Monday came far too fast and far too late, their respective Sunday's spent equal parts in bed and staring mournfully at their phones, trying to will it into their hands so they could make that fated call that they were dreading so fully.

But they never did, and with a profound sense of apprehension they got up for school and took care of their usual routine, their thoughts laying elsewhere from showering and hair products.

Peter was considering if it maybe wasn't too early to reveal his identity, if for no other reason than having probable cause to run away to the Avengers compound for the foreseeable future. Maybe not the most noble of paths, but he doubted that it would have been the most foolish thing anyone in that team had done.

MJ meanwhile was picking out her outfit for the day with invisibility in mind, which combination of colors would make it easy for him to _not_ see her that day? She'd given half a thought to skipping school altogether, but knowledge _was_ power after all, she'd sarcastically reminded too many people of that over the last few years to forget it. She would just have to hope that they weren’t going to be as awkward about this as she feared, but she’d given up on people in this city acting calmly about _anything_ ever since aliens proved themselves to be both real and malevolent all in the same movement.

“Screw it,” She sighed, scowling at her reflection in the mirror when she realized she’d been flip flopping between a ponytail and leaving her hair loose for the past ten minutes, “Let’s just get this over with.”

****

It wasn't quite cold enough to justify it, but Peter just had to hope that scarves were in fashion this season, pulling out a somewhat stylish black scarf with burgundy highlights, draping it around his neck and repositioning it until every bruise was covered.

"This actually looks pretty nice," He said, frowning at himself in the mirror, "I don't remember buying this."

Scrubbing his fingers through his hair and trying to get it just right, he sighed a deep breath before laying his hands on either side of the mirror. “Just don’t worry about it,” He said, leaning closer to his reflection, “She’ll be cool, you’ll be cool, everyone’s gonna be cool, ok? You’ve got this, you’re _Spider-Man.”_

He stepped back, the scarf shuffling just slightly and revealing the top of a hickey, his hand immediately coming back up to readjust. “Screw it, I’m an _idiot.”_

Shuffling his way out of the apartment quickly with a kiss to May’s forehead and a twirling of his keys, he stepped out into the frigid Queens air and popped his earphones in, scrolling through to one of the playlists that he listened to on the way to school, usually to block out the overwhelming sounds of the city but right now to block out his own thoughts. Though he’d tried to put it out of his mind he’d found himself revisiting the events of Friday night at least three times on Sunday, feeling shame every time but noticeably less each subsequent time, he’d learned pretty quickly that some things were just kind of destined to stick with you.

But that was the weekend, this was a weekday, there were different rules for this sort of thing, different standards that you had to hold yourself to! He couldn’t sit around in class thinking about breathless cries and chocolate eyes, he was supposed to be thinking about math equations and annexations. History of the world was more important than the history of right now, so long as he kept that in mind and his eyes low he would be fine today, that’s all there was to it.

But with each step he took down the street towards Midtown Tech he could feel the familiar apprehension creeping up on him, like when he knew a threat was looming except this time he knew it wasn’t someone waiting with a gun. No, he knew the source of this particular threat, and he was worried that it was going to kill him _very_ slowly, tear him down piece by piece until there wasn’t much left of him at all. It was impressive what Michelle Jones could do just with her sheer presence, a simple look turning even loudmouths like Flash into quivering children. It was probably her scary eyes, that was it, he was just going to have to remember them as promisers of pain, not as… what he wasn’t supposed to be thinking of.

It was funny, he couldn’t see her, couldn’t hear her, hadn’t even seen a single sign of her, but walking through those front doors and seeing more than a few pairs of eyes staring up at him as he walked past, he could still _feel_ her. Like she was just waiting out of sight waiting to walk up to him at any moment. Though of course he’d felt that way a lot over the last few months, right before he looked up across the classroom to engage in one of their impromptu staring competitions, but she was hardly the only one who started those.

Music still blaring in his ears as he walked past the notice boards and the bathrooms, he still didn’t hear what anyone was actually saying as he stopped in front of his locker, turning the dial left and right and feeling the lock pop open. Resting his forehead against the cold metal, he took a deep breath before straightening up again, swinging his door open and leaning in at the same time that he felt a hand clap down onto his back.

“What the crap!” He yelled, jumping almost straight up and slamming the back of his head into the shelf, clutching at his scalp and groaning, “Not again…”

Ned looked to be the exact picture of apology, mouth flapping open and closed again and again until he realized that Peter couldn’t hear him, plucking out one of his earphones before he continued. “Dude I’m _so_ sorry, I thought you would have known I was coming!”

“Yeah, well…” Peter took a moment to make sure his scarf was still secured, before he shook his head and nodded. “Just kind of out of it today, that’s all.”

“Yeah no kidding, you didn’t message me all weekend! I thought you might’ve fallen out of a building or… I dunno, gotten shot or something, I was worried!”

“I’m pretty sure if either of those things happened you probably would have seen it on the news.” Grabbing the books that he needed out of his locker, he swung the door shut and relocked it before turning back to Ned and walking by his side. “Besides you saw how I was, I needed to rest up for the weekend, even I have limits.”

“Yeah, no kidding,” He laughed, squinting at Peter when his face remained blank, “Wait, have you really not heard?”

“...Heard what?” Peter asked, already regretting having gotten out of bed that morning.

“Everyone’s talking about you outdrinking Flash! Like drinking almost a full bottle and not even being _affected_ kind of outdrinking! How did you not hear that they were _literally_ talking about it when you walked in.”

“I had my earphones in…” _Shit. Shit. Shit._ “...Is that all they’re talking about?”

Ned shrugged, pivoting to turn into their math class. “Far as I know, I only got in just after you did. But dude, if this is your new rep then isn’t that good? It means that everyone’s totally forgetting about when you bailed on Liz at prom when her dad got arrested.”

Peter narrowed his eyes, shoulders drooping and a scowl crossing her face when he replied, “Wow Ned, I’d completely forgotten about that, thanks for reminding me.”

“Come on, cheer up! People think you’re cool and they’re making fun of Flash, isn’t that a great outcome?”

He thought about it for a moment, really fighting the smile on his face but not enough that the corner of his mouth didn’t quirk upwards. “Alright yeah, that’s pretty cool.”

****

The next two classes went by without incident, and with a curious absence of MJ, a point on which Peter wasn’t sure to be thankful for or disappointed in. With the way his mood had soured over the last two hours, he was leaning towards disappointed.

At least until the moment in the cafeteria he looked up from the spot that he’d been burning into the table with his eyes, seeing MJ walk right in without any sense of worry or awkwardness that he could see, not the same kind that he’d been carrying around with him all morning looking over his shoulder and flicking his eyes up at every hint of wild brown hair that he could. Given it was the most common hair color in the world he’d been doing a lot of flicking.

“Oh, MJ’s here!” Ned said, smiling and waving her over to their table, as though she actually ever sat anywhere else. She shook her head, maybe even smiling before she schooled her expression and dumped her bag on the other side of the table, sitting down in front of Peter and pulling out one of the many books that she started in the mornings and finished the same night.

“‘Sup nerds.”

Peter took a moment too long choking on his tongue to stammer out, “H-Hey… MJ.”

She nodded, the only indication that she was feeling similarly to him a temporary darkening of her cheeks when he said her name, but other than that she was stone cold as usual. Maybe more than usual, aside from sitting closer to them than ever she didn’t add to Ned and Peter’s conversation, the only sound coming from her side was the rustle of one page turning to another. Maybe she was just dealing with everything fine and didn’t feel like talking today, that was fine, that was normal, there were days before where she’d done similar. But he hadn’t missed the scarf around her neck similarly to his, hadn’t missed the times that she reached up to adjust it and she stilled for a moment, before continuing on like nothing had happened. It got to the point that even Ned noticed, trailing off in the middle of talking about homework assignments to ask, “Hey MJ, are you ok?”

“Hmm?” Her head snapped up just a fraction too fast, eyes widening before they narrowed to a degree that spelled danger. “I’m fine.”

“Ok… because you’ve been acting kind of weird…” He narrowed _his_ eyes this time, flicking them from MJ to Peter and back in a way that had them both slinking back in their seats. “Did something hap-”

“Nope!” Peter said, shaking his head frantically, “Nothing happened!”

MJ snorted, “Smooth. Really smooth Parker.”

Ned leaned forward, pointing at MJ. “So something _did_ hap-”

“No!” She snapped, crossing her arms and staring at him with wide eyes, “Nothing happened!”

“Y-Yeah Ned, why’re you being weird about this?” Peter asked, leaning his chin on his palm and trying _far_ too hard to be casual, “Did something happen to _you_ or something?”

“Don’t try to turn this around on me it’s… something _weird_ is going on with the two of you, isn’t there?” His eyes lowered from their faces to the scarves around both their necks, then back up to their faces, and finally he took note of the blushes that were growing brighter by the second. “Wait a minute…” He said, voice barely a whisper as his eyes grew so wide that there was a danger of them falling out of his skull, “Did you two have se-”

MJ jumped up from her seat, startling both of them and saying a hair too loudly, “Wow, I have something to take care of in the library, don’t you have somewhere to be too Peter?”

He nodded, he knew an escape plan when he saw it. “Yeah I do MJ! I’ve got to go do… something. The library?” She shook her head. “Somewhere that isn’t the library?” She nodded. “Yep! Somewhere that isn’t the library! See ya Ned!”

They both split off in different directions, leaving Ned to spend too long deciding which one to go after before he realized that one had impossibly long legs and the other was Spider-Man, if they really didn’t want to be found he wasn’t going to find them. Instead he just sat back in his seat and focused on eating his apple, sighing, “Man, what weirdos…”

****

The last few minutes alone before their next class did them good, well not good exactly, half a freak out and five minutes of calming down took them both back somewhat to baseline but their conditions were hardly ideal. So, not exactly the impression they’d wanted to make, but who could blame them really? Socializing was still somewhat new for her even with her position of decathlon captain, and he had enough trouble talking to her _before_ he’d found out what she looked like naked, the whole situation was just a disaster waiting to happen.

Especially since they realized what their next class was, with a sinking of their hearts and a swallowing of lumps in their throats.

“Gym class…”

Gym, the one class that had a required second uniform. A required second uniform that consisted of shorts and a t-shirt, and in the summer a tank top. An outfit that would reveal a lot of skin, especially around the neck area, and that was something that would probably spell the direct end of their quiet school lives and cement them as the hot new rumor around the hallways. Obviously, not something _either_ of them wanted.

Peter spent so much time chewing his lip and thinking about what he was going to do that he almost walked right past the gym itself, snapping his head up and almost tripping over himself to get inside and look around, everyone else already dressed and doing warm ups for whatever half baked exercise they were going to do that day.

All of them except MJ, who sat up on the bleachers in the clothes that she’d been wearing the rest of the day so far, looking equal parts disinterested and apprehensive. At least until she looked over at the entrance and saw him standing there, at which point she very pointedly looked away and refused to look back at him.

_Come on Peter, actually be_ brave _here man._

“Parker, get changed and get in a group,” Coach Wilson said, glancing up from his magazine before looking back down again.

“Can I just not do that today and you give me detention instead?”

“Whatever.”

Shrugging to himself and walking across the gym towards the bleachers, he ignored the few eyes that flicked up at him and the assorted whispers from groups around the floor. Stepping up each seat until he was right next to her, he was still keenly aware of the fact that she hadn’t looked at him even once as he’d been walking over, and that lasted right through the moment that he plopped himself in the space next to her and blew a raspberry as he let himself relax. Or at least, as much as he _could_ relax.

“Things are… kind of awkward right now, aren’t they?”

She snorted, looking over at him for a moment, just long enough to see a ghost of an embarrassed smile before she turned back to the front. “I was supposed to seem cooler today, guess that didn’t really work out huh?”

“Don’t feel too bad, you _saw_ how I was acting right?” Peter leaned his elbows on his knees, leaning forward and watching her from the side. Her shoulders shook briefly, her thumb coming up to try and keep her smile under control, but that was good enough for him. “I would say don’t laugh, but I’d probably laugh too.”

“You’re trying,” She chuckled, sweeping her hand back through her hair and groaning, “I thought about what I was going to do all weekend, and now I’m just… coming up blank.”

“Same, but I mean come on, it was kind of a real… thing that we were thrown into, right?” Peter sighed, “I’m… I’m sorry if I made things awkward, I genuinely wanted to be fine and ok about this, but I guess I’m still getting used to it. It’s stupid right? I mean we’re both friends…”

She nodded. “But I guess it was still a pretty big thing, I freaked out about it yesterday too, I was thinking about not showing up today at all. But… you didn’t make things awkward, if anything it’s both of us.”

“But… we _are_ still friends right? That hasn’t changed?”

“What?” The expression on her face was open, far more shocked than she normally would have allowed herself to show. “Of course we are, I don’t want to give that up!”

He sighed in relief, resting his hands on his forehead and looking down at his feet. “That’s good, that’s really good. You’re a really good friend and I don’t want to screw that up.”

“To be fair, we really didn’t speak all that much before Friday night.”

“Yeah but we didn’t need to you know? We had that… telepathy thing going on for the last month.”

She rolled her eyes. “That’s ‘Twin Telepathy’ which a. Isn’t real, and b. We’re not twins. Which thank _God_ for that.”

“Oh gross, yeah I didn’t think about it that way.”

“But… we _do_ need to talk about some things, some pretty serious things, and I think we should just get them out of the way before we run away from it all again, ok?” 

Peter nodded, his mood much more solemn. “Yeah I did a lot of thinking over the weekend and there’s something that I’ve really got to tell you, like, something _really_ important before anything else happens.”

_Oh God,_ She thought, _It_ is _going to be what I thought._

“I think what I’ve got to talk about might be similar, so why don’t we just… say it together, ok? Would that be alright?”

“Yeah! Yeah that’d be fine, I don’t know how long it would take me to say it otherwise.”

_God,_ He thought, _She’s going to think that I’m such an_ asshole.

“Alright… on three, ok?”

He nodded. “One…”

“Two…”

“Three!”

They leaned close, clamping their eyes shut as they both said, “I can’t date!”

Peters eyes snapped open at the same time as MJ’s, questions already on their lips but wisely shutting their mouths as they took a moment to make sure that they’d heard correctly. Once they decided that yes, they had in fact heard properly, they leaned in and whispered, _“What?”_

“Wait hold on, you first,” Peter said, “What do you mean?”

“I mean… I thought you were going to come and try to do some weird ‘I’m sorry, we had sex and now we need to be together, I need to make things right’ thing!” She threw her hands up, surprised at the shock on his face. “What? You seem like the type honestly!”

“You… wouldn’t want that?” He asked, tone more controlled than she’d been expecting, maybe even cautious.

“Peter,” She said, twisting around to face him fully, “When have I ever shown that I’d want to date someone? Don’t take it personally, you’re… great, really, but I’m just not interested in dating anyone right now, that’s all.”

He almost collapsed back in his seat, pressing his hand against his chest and exhaling heavily. “You have no idea how glad I am to hear that right now, I thought that this was going to end with you thinking I was a massive dick or something…”

“It might still end that way if you don’t explain why you’re so happy that I don’t want to date you right now, so get started.”

“Oh right, right,” He stammered, sitting up straight and clearing his throat, “I… thought that you know, after what we did… I didn’t want to…”

“Calm down Peter.” She rolled her eyes, placing her cheek in her palm. “I’m not going to bite your head off, just… talk, don’t worry about it.”

Peter nodded, wiping his hands on his pants and tapping his fingers against his knees. “I thought that you might think that I was just interested in… sex, like that’s all that I was trying to get out of all this. I was worried that just going on like normal without talking about it again might make me seem like an asshole, and I didn’t know if you were maybe expecting me to ask you out or whatever but I’m just… not in any position to do that right now.”

He looked up at her, taking a moment to stare before he said, “Not that I wouldn’t! You know you’re wonderful, you’re a good friend, anyone would be lucky, but we’re just friends… right?”

“Yeah, yeah just… just friends…” She said, feeling relief falling across her shoulders at the same time as curiosity clicked in her mind, “What do you mean that you’re not in any position for it?”

He laughed, briefly, just a single solemn breath through his nose. “Liz wasn’t even two months ago MJ, that was such a colossal screw up that I’m not sure anything I do would ever make up for it. And it was all my fault, you know? She didn’t deserve any of that and I just… let her down.”

She frowned. “Not everything-”

“No, it really was everything that was my fault, and m-maybe that doesn’t make sense to you right now, but it’s true just… just trust me, alright?” 

“Alright fine, everything’s your fault all the time, I’ll keep that in mind.” Leaning further forward to get a better look at his face, she found herself smiling at the slight upward tilt of his lips, obviously trying very hard not to smile. “Look just… things happen, you know? It might not have been two months ago, but it _is almost_ two months ago, sooner or later you’ve got to just let it go. I hate giving compliments but… people really would be lucky to have you.”

“Maybe, but I think I’m fine like this for now.” He shrugged. “I think Friday was enough excitement for me anyway, I think I need to take it easy for a while.”

MJ laughed, covering her mouth and closing her eyes. “I think that’s maybe a bit of an understatement, did you _see_ how fast you got out of bed?”

“I was surprised! You can’t blame me for that!”

“You looked even more surprised when you slipped on your own condom, arms like that and you can’t throw more than two feet?”

He almost fell backwards, holding his stomach and cackling up at the ceiling. She tried, really tried to keep herself under control, but it was hard to when he was shaking next to her and when she thought about the wide eyed look of surprise on his face right before he slipped backwards. By the time they both calmed down there were tears in the corners of her eyes, her own dying laughter still muffled by the palm of her hand and his still echoing off the walls of the gym, more than a few of their classmates turning to stare up at them.

Peter giggled a few more times, swiping at his eyes and breathing heavily as he sat back up again, sniffing a few times and looking back over at her. “Are we ok? Still friends?”

“Yeah,” She chuckled, clearing her throat, “Still friends.”

“Good, that’s really good,” He said, grinning widely, “Because I’ve been honestly dying to know if it’s still as bad for you as it is for me.”

“If what’s-” He pointed at his scarf, and right then she understood. “Oh, right. _That.”_

“I didn’t know that scarves were in fashion,” He chuckled, “Didn’t know if it would make me stick out too much.”

“Well I have a feeling that we’re sticking out anyway, so I don’t think that really matters now.” She smirked. “And also…”

His jaw dropped when she pulled the scarf down the side of her neck, letting him see the prominent marking just below her jaw, as well as the hints of more further down than was appropriate to show at school. “Did _I_ do that?”

“No, dork, I decided the best thing that I could do yesterday was take the vacuum to myself. _Yes_ you did that! If my mom sees it I might _actually_ kill you.”

“Sorry… but if it makes you feel better-” He pulled his own scarf down, almost laughing at the way her eyes widened. “-I couldn’t really hide this one from my aunt when I got home.”

“Oh _God,”_ She said, grimacing, “How’d that go?”

“We’re not talking about it, I think it’s for the best. You should see my back though, now _that_ was insane.”

“I mean…” She leaned back, peeking around his back and slowly lifting the back of his shirt up until he pulled it down again. “Oh come on, you can’t tell me that and not make me curious!”

“I know it’s just… _school_ you know?” He glanced around, before leaning closer and whispering, “I’ll send you some pictures tonight, it’s really something to see. That… wouldn’t be weird would it?”

“What? No of course it wouldn’t be weird, we already put them there who cares if we look at them again?” She shrugged. “It’s, you know, friend stuff. I’ve got some more, I’ll send them over tonight too.”

“Ok, good, good…” He said, looking back over at the class and smiling, “It’s a nice scarf by the way.”

“Thanks, it’s been in the back of my closet for like five years now. I like yours too.”

“Oh thanks! I literally have no idea when I got it, came in handy today though.” He rubbed the back of his neck over the scarf. “People are already talking enough apparently…”

“Oh?” She asked, leaning in and bumping his shoulder with hers, “Not used to being the center of attention?”

Peter snorted, taking note of the amused confusion that crossed her face before he shook his head. “Trust me MJ, that’s a _really_ complicated subject…” **  
**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well that's that I guess, nothing ever happened after that, they stayed friends forever and their attraction was never an issue. Thanks for reading everyo… forgot I did all that planning, disregard this entire thing.
> 
> I considered giving them another chapter of angst but this is my trip I'm bringin' ya'll on and I want to get back to fucking. Course that doesn't mean their issues are sorted out, far from it, it's just a nice place to give them a break haha. This isn't a smut chapter, but I guess Spider-Man just got fucked pretty hard by Sony and Disney amirite?
> 
> So, aside from that bummer news I hope that you enjoyed this chapter! Thank you everyone for your wonderful comments, we got even more than last time so let's definitely keep up that energy!
> 
> And follow me on [Twitter](https://twitter.com/AssidoMina) too, even though I like, NEVER tweet anything x


	5. Chapter 5

Peter had forgotten how much he needed the feeling of the wind battering against him, to see the streets rushing up at him so fast that his heart rose into his throat, right before his web caught the edge of a building and suddenly he was sailing forward, the horns of cars and delighted screams of onlookers deafening and then gone in an instant as he passed by. How he had ever lived before being able to do this he had absolutely no idea.

Letting go off the web and flinging his hand out to his right, he felt the weightlessness of hurtling through the air before another strand caught the top of a lamp post, his bicep tensing and burning as he pulled with all his might and threw himself straight down the middle of the street, climbing higher and higher with every web until he flipped up and landed perfectly on the edge of an apartment building, taking a moment to breath in and out as he looked out at the city. Every night he could do this, explore the city,  _ his _ city, in a way that no one else living had ever been able to, to be able to walk with the people and fly with the birds so uninhibited that he may as well have been the wind itself.

Most other nights he would be on the lookout for whatever trouble he could help solve, whether it be a bank heist or helping an old woman across the street, but tonight… tonight he just wanted to swing, feel the burning in his muscles and the pounding of his heart. He hadn’t forgotten what he’d promised to do tonight, and he wasn’t going to take chances with having any strange bruises that he couldn’t explain away as a result of the weekend. 

He’d been thinking about  _ why _ exactly the scratches were still there, and so far the only theory that he’d come up with was that either they were so low level in terms of injury that his body didn’t see a point in healing them, or the caffeine had interfered with his metabolism when he’d gotten them and he’d been thrown all out of whack. Truth be told he didn’t mind too much in  _ this _ case, but it was something that he’d have to keep in mind in the future, on a night when he  _ was  _ looking to get into trouble.

_ Though,  _ he thought, staring down into the empty street and seeing someone throwing a bottle against the window of a radioshack,  _ I guess I have time for just  _ one  _ tonight… _

Dropping to the street and dusting off the front of his suit, he watched what looked to be someone barely in their twenties picking up an empty beer bottle and tossing it against the window, getting more and more frustrated as it bounced off harmlessly and rolled back to them again and again. It was almost hypnotizing, but as they reared their arm back to throw it again Peter decided that it was perhaps best to intervene.

“Um, excuse me?”

“Oh shit!” They screamed, turning around and hurling the bottle at him instead, just missing his head as he ducked out of the way, “Oh crap it’s you! I’m so sorry!”

“Yep,” He answered, looking back at the bottle and then to them, “It’s… it’s me, what are you doing?”

“Oh… n-nothing?”

He was grateful for the reactive eyes on his suit, it would have been a shame for the look of blank disapproval to be missed.

“Ok,” They chuckled, scrubbing a hand through their close cropped hair and shrugging their shoulders, “So… my boss laid me off yesterday because I caught him stealing from the register, and he said that if I said anything that he’d call the cops and say that I did it.”

“So you decided that you’d bust his window to get back at him?”

“Oh, no I figured that I may as well take everything from the register if he’s already blaming me for it, plus there’s an atm in there that I could have gotten into as well.” They paused, holding their finger up and nodding to themselves. “I’m just now realizing that it’s a bad idea to admit this.”

Peter sighed, there was no point in calling this in, he wasn’t even sure that there was a real crime that had been committed here other than loitering, and that was a stupid law anyway that he’d ignored more times that he could count. “Look just… don’t break the window, and don’t try to steal any atm’s, ok? Just go home, get another job, I’ll see if I can do anything about your boss.”

“You got it,” They said, saluting lightly and turning around to leave, “More I think about it the dumber the idea sounds…”

He rolled his eyes, though he couldn’t help the smile that cracked through, beating up criminals wasn’t the only way to solve problems. Peter was about to turn around himself to head back home when he noticed the leather wallet sitting in the middle of the road, whistling loudly and getting their attention again. “Hey!” He yelled, picking up the wallet and holding it up, “You left your wallet!”

“Oh shi-” They jogged over, grimacing and holding their hand out, “I’m not really making a cool impression here.”

“I fell in a dumpster the other week, so I wouldn’t worry about it,” Peter said, flipping through the wallet idly and seeing another silver square pop into his vision. Reaching in and plucking it out, he inclined his head and asked, “Actually, can I take this?”

They snorted, taking the rest of the wallet and shrugging their shoulders, “I’m not using it, knock yourself out. Spider-Man needs love too.”

“Don’t say it like that…”

"Well anyway I better get going! I'm Chris, big fan!" They walked off, making sure that their wallet was in their pocket and their fly was done up as they went. Peter scratched the back of his neck, slipping the foil packet under his suit and sighing to himself, feeling like after a sight like that perhaps he could better serve elsewhere.

“Hey Karen? Can you get the camera footage from the store in front of us if it’s available? I want to see if there’s anything that I can do here.”

“Of course Peter, I can scan the footage and look for anything of interest if you wish.”

"That sounds good,” He said, stretching his arms above his head and groaning, “Alright, time to go home."

_ Extra-curricular activities, _ he’d said.

_ But you’re a terrible student,  _ she’d replied.

_ Thank you for being honest,  _ he’d sighed, before leaving her at the door of the school.

After they’d both left detention, showing up for the mandatory ten minutes before Coach Wilson told them to just leave so he could go home, they’d made sure to reiterate what they’d discussed previously in gym class. Namely, bite marks and scratches, and evidence thereof.

He’d shown that he was still open to it, and excited, in his obvious way.

She’d shown that she was open to it as well, and also excited, in her more private way.

Which brought her to here, standing in front of her wardrobe waiting for a text saying that he was home, fishing through her underwear in search of something cute. For what reason she wasn’t blind to, maybe she just wanted to know he was squirming a little more seeing her in something lacy. You know, just a little teasing between friends, that’s all.

Only she didn’t own anything lacy, hadn’t really thought about much except comfort in the shopping trips she’d had to go through, so her search was more than a little fruitless. “Whatever,” She said, shrugging and shutting her wardrobe before falling back onto her bed, “Not like he minded what I was wearing the other night.”

While she  _ was _ looking forward to this, it was going to be  _ fun _ she knew that much, she was still surprised at just how  _ long _ he was taking to get back home, it was almost seven and he still hadn’t messaged, called, no contact at all. It was almost concerning, but then again she’d been watching him enough to know that it wasn’t exactly out of the ordinary, he was always disappearing off to God only knew where and coming back like nothing had happened. She just hadn’t had it  _ really _ inconvenience her before.

Well, except for when she had to pick up the slack at regionals. And when she’d had to do practices without him. And the one time they’d been assigned as lab partners and he ran out halfway through the class not to be seen again until the next day.

So, scratch that, he was an  _ incredibly _ inconvenient person.

But from what she could remember he looked good with his shirt off, so there were certain things that she could let slide for the moment.

And then, just as she’d started thinking of him all over again, her phone lit up with his name and the annoyingly poppy tune that she’d picked out for him a long time ago echoed around her room. “A call? Really?”

Getting up to shut her door and turn the lock, she waited just a couple more seconds to make him think that he’d missed his chance before temptation finally won out, her hand snatching it up and tapping answer with a quickness that she would have to remind herself to be embarrassed over later.

“Hey! MJ?” He sounded out of breath, whatever he’d been doing must have been pretty physical, or maybe he’d just run home fast to unscrew his chances. She preferred the image of the first, but the second was doing wonders for her ego. “Sorry I got held up, took longer than I thought to get home.”

“I suppose it’s alright,” She said, grinning at the nervous gulp she heard over the line, “You can send a message at least.”

“Y-Yeah, I’ll do that next time,” He said, and before she could really mull over  _ next time _ he was shouting on the other side of the line, “May, please! You gave me The Talk twice before already, I  _ really _ don’t need another one! Literally anything else, I’m begging you.”

She had to admit that she felt a little bad for laughing, being that it  _ was _ partially her fault that he was in this situation, but the idea of him frantically backing away to his room from the no doubt intimidating spectre of a concerned parental figure was just too precious not to make her feel  _ something.  _ By the time she’d finished giggling she heard his door click shut and his sigh filter through her speaker, that kind of tone where it felt like it was brushing against you if you held the phone just right.

“Yes, please, laugh, it’s very funny,” He drawled, but she’d been around him enough lately to know when he had a smile on his face, “You’re lucky that you haven’t gone through this too, it sucks.”

“Trust me, if I was I’d make sure that you knew.” She had in fact narrowly avoided it at dinner, but thankfully making sure it was hidden was just a matter of keeping her hair down and her hoodie on until she’d finished the takeout that her mother had brought back for the night. “Concealer really works wonders.”

“Oh, do… you think I could borrow some?”

“There’s a  _ slight _ difference in our skin tones Parker, not sure how well that would work.”

“Oh. Right,” He laughed, before silence stretched between them for an uncomfortable amount of time, “I’m sorry, I just don’t really know what to do from here.”

“I get it,” She said, toying with the collar of her shirt more nervously than she would have liked to admit, “Let’s just start with something small, ok?”

There was a stretch of silence where she almost thought that he’d hung up, but soon enough he exhaled a heavy breath at the same time as her phone vibrated, holding the screen up and opening the message that he’d just sent through. She could see why he’d been nervous, though she’d gotten a glimpse at his neck earlier that day she definitely hadn’t seen the full picture, the most noticeable mark on his neck only one of many smaller nicks and nips into his skin, as well as something further around just below his hairline that had her squinting in curiosity. “What’s that on the back of your neck?”

“Oh, that,” He chuckled, the weight in his chest audibly lifting away bit by bit as her phone vibrated again, “That was one of the ones that I  _ definitely  _ knew was there when I woke up.”

Seeing the angry red lines, four of them all the same distance apart as her fingers, she couldn’t help but let out a hiss of sympathetic pain. She’d had scratches like that before, though from different circumstances of course, and she remembered full well how they stung. “Sorry about that,” She said, “Is… your whole back like that?”

“Yep, just about the whole thing,” He said, stumbling over his next words as he continued, “But I uh… showed you mine, so… show me yours?”

“That would have been a lot more suave if I couldn’t  _ hear  _ your blush.”

“...Dammit.”

“But fair enough,” She sighed, pretending like she  _ also  _ didn’t have a blush or a smile on her face, “Don’t get all weird on me, ok?”

“No weird! I promise!”

Pulling her top over her head and holding her arm in front of her breasts (She needed to maintain  _ some _ semblance of decency through this after all) she put on the flattest expression that she could as she tapped the camera, almost laughing at the thought that she was actually doing this with  _ Peter Parker _ of all people. It was… weird, how weird it didn’t feel.

Whatever nervousness she’d had sending the picture through was pretty decently buried as he stumbled over his words and seemed to be choking on his own tongue, taking a good twenty seconds to collect himself before he said, in a far too casual tone, “Wow that’s uh… impressive.”

She snorted, “Cat got your tongue?”

“No! You’re just… very distracting?”

“Oh this should be good,” She chuckled, laying down on her front and kicking her legs idly, “What about me is distracting?”

“Oh I don’t… uh… I…”

“Relax, I’m asking. Permission to be weird, dweeb.”

“A-Alright… Well, now that I’m looking at them again I’m thinking about… that night, and I don’t know if that’s cool of me to do. Like I don’t want to be  _ creepy _ or anything like that.”

“Seriously? I’ve been thinking about that the entire time,” She laughed, rolling onto her back and staring up at the ceiling again, “Way to make me feel like a weirdo Parker.”

“Oh, I didn’t mean you… were… you’ve really been thinking about it?”

_ “Allllll the time,”  _ She sighed.  _ Alright, pull it back a little, just supposed to be teasing.  _ “Congrats on showing someone a good time Pete.”

He laughed, a breathy, flattered sound that she decided she wouldn’t mind hearing more of. “You don’t have to say that, I was just… I was just kidding.”

“No you weren’t,” She said, suddenly annoyed, “And neither was I. You’re built like someone on the football team without the ego, be a  _ little  _ proud at least.”

“Aww Mj…”

“I mean you’re already on the AcaDec team, you kind of need to be proud of whatever you can get at this point.”

“Aaaaand there she is,” Peter laughed, “You’re the  _ captain, _ I should remind you.”

“Yeah but I’m cool and aloof. The rest of you wear neon signs that say ‘kick me’.”

“I’m at least cooler than Flash right?”

“Very few people aren’t.”

They both laughed, Peter sighing and relaxing into his bed and MJ doing the same, fingers twirling a strand of hair like she was some smitten character in a romcom. As soon as she realized she dropped her hand to her side, popping her lips a few times to kill the silence.

“Built like someone on the football team huh?” He said, the teasing smile on his face absurdly loud through the phone line, “That’s very… descriptive.”

_ Oh wonderful, two can play at this game.  _ “Yep,” She said, popping the ‘p’ and grinning, “Want me to tell you what your shoulders make me want to do?”

The silence after he sucked a heavy breath in through his teeth was heavy, for a moment making her think that she’d said something absurdly wrong before he surprised her by asking, “Yes?”

Her eyes went wide, not having anticipated that outcome, so after a few seconds of floundering she said, “They make me want to…”  _ Think. Idiot.  _ “Ask you for that picture you owe me. Of your back.”

“Oh! Right! The picture. Of my back. The one that I was going to show you. Right.” Clearing his throat a few times and posing, maybe flexing in one or two places in a way that he hoped wasn’t  _ too _ obvious, he sent the picture through and laughed at her sympathetic groan.

“That doesn’t hurt does it?”

“It did when I was in bed on Saturday, but it doesn’t now. You’re not  _ quite _ Wolverine.”

“I could be Wolverine, you don’t know.”

“You can’t be Wolverine, you’re taller than me.”

“And how do  _ you  _ know that?”

“Because he’s like knee high! Everyone knows that!”

“Well what knee was he measured next to? Was it a tall person? Were you there personally?”

“No but-”

“Case closed,” She said, “Thank you for your time.”

“Goddammit,” He sighed, “Can we just go back to sending each other pictures of our chests, or whatever it is that we’re doing here?”

“Yeah sure,” MJ said, sitting up and crossing her legs, “I found one on the inside of my thigh, want to see it?”

“Sure!”

It was around the time that they were both laying in their beds, panting up at the ceilings hours after they’d hung up that they finally realized that perhaps this wasn’t what was needed to stop thinking about what they’d already done together. 

But then why would they have to stop thinking about it? They’d already admitted to each other that they were, what was the harm in thinking about it more, even _ talking _ about it some more? Surely it would just be more harmful in the long run to just never acknowledge it, to leave it as some little anecdote tucked away in the backs of their minds while they were bored at parties and thinking of spicing up idle conversation.

_ Hey, let me tell you about the time we got drunk and rode each other into oblivion, great party! _

Of course, they were both aware that this was likely because their brains were locked in a temporary state of horniness on this particular night, a state that they were very aware was of their own making, but that didn’t mean they weren’t capable of genuine consideration.

And what they were considering now, thinking separately but newly confident that said thoughts were the same, was that while it didn’t have to be a big deal, perhaps burying it in the background of their friendship wasn’t the only way to handle it.

Of course, there was just the small matter of how exactly they were going to bring it up to each other, and that was something that they had  _ no _ answer to. At least, not any that had any place outside the realm of fantasy.

But there was just one thing that they were truly certain of…

Eventually they were going to have to talk to Ned.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And there we have another chapter! This is more of a bridge honestly, just wanted to plant a few seeds before we get back into the good stuff! Hopefully won't be too long, but I am writing two fics for an art exchange so I may have to step the updates back a little, we'll see though!
> 
> Also, big ups to everyone commenting, I see you all and I love you :3
> 
> Follow me on [Twatter](https://twitter.com/AssidoMina)


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> >:3c

“Just so you know,” Ned said, appearing right beside Peter’s locker, “I have a  _ lot _ of questions.”

“I know dude, I know,” Peter sighed, “Me and MJ… we’ll tell you all about it today, ok? Just wait until lunch, I promise we’ll talk to you.”

“Talk to him about what?” MJ asked, stepping out of seemingly nowhere and twirling one of the loose threads of her scarf around her finger, “Oh… about the thing?”

“How do you do that…” Peter sighed, “Yeah, we should let him know about… everything, right? I mean, if that’s alright with you?”

“Yeah, sure, whatever.” She shrugged, flicking her head at Ned. “Long as you’re not weird about it, ok?”

“I’m not gonna be  _ weird!”  _ He protested, “I just want to know what’s going on with my friends, that’s all!”

“Cool. Well you nerds should probably get to class, I’ve seen your grades and they’re kind of  _ ehhhh…” _

Peter snorted, grabbing his books and shutting the door of his locker. “Very funny, you mind if I talk to you for a minute?” She shrugged, stepping to the side as he turned back to Ned. “Go on ahead, I’ll catch up with you, I just gotta talk to her about something real quick.”

“Ok…” Ned narrowed his eyes at the both of them, but finding nothing  _ too _ suspicious he shrugged and smiled. “Don’t be late, I’m not covering for you this time.”

“Go,” He laughed, shoving him away gently, “I’m serious, I’ll catch up.”

“Alright, see ya later MJ!”

“Bye Ned,” She replied, waving lazily and watching him walk off, “How’d you get lucky with a friend like that?”

“I think you mean how’d  _ we _ get lucky with a friend like that,” He laughed, “And I still don’t really know how.”

She hummed, flattening herself against the locker to get as far away from the horde of shambling teenagers as possible. “So what’d you want to talk about?”

“I just…” Peter rubbed the back of his neck, looking around to make sure no one was listening. “I wanted to know if there’s anything you  _ don’t  _ want to talk about later, like I’m fine with telling him whatever but you might not be, you know?”

“Aww Petey…” She popped her lips out in an exaggerated pout. “You’re so sweet, looking out for me.”

“Alright yeah sure, so I can just  _ assume  _ that you want me to tell him  _ everything _ about that night?”

She felt her cheeks heat up, and seeing him do the same told her exactly what he was thinking of. “I don’t think he needs to know the specific details, just that… it happened.”

“Yeah, good call,” He said, nodding his head, “And now that I think about it, maybe we shouldn’t tell him about last night? It might just be kind of… confusing for him right now.”

“It  _ was _ just a friend thing.”

“Sure, but how many friends have you sent pictures like that?”

“...Ok that’s a fair point, we can just… leave that out then.”

“Good, cool,” He said, clapping his hands together and flicking her shoulder, “I will… see you at lunch then. To talk. About all this.”

“Yep! Yep yep yep...” She backed away, heading towards her own class and nodding slowly. “I’ll… I’ll be there alright. Looking forward to it.”

****

She was not looking forward to it, in fact she’d go as far as to say that she was outright  _ dreading _ it. She knew Ned was a good guy, he and Peter had been nothing but accommodating to her ever since their ‘friendship’ started, months before it actually blossomed into a Friendship, no quotation.

But she remembered something her cousin had said about pregnancy tests, and it had stuck with her for a long time now. You could be absolutely sure that you used all the protection that you could, be aware down to the smallest percentage what the actual chances were of it turning up positive, know that it was a million to one chance and this was just a formality, but as soon as you take the test and you have to spend those last few minutes waiting you’re suddenly going to be imagining every worst case scenario, every single way in which something can and  _ will _ go wrong. And those three minutes of waiting will feel like an  _ absolute _ eternity.

Which was where she was waiting right now, the first to sit down at their table and just waiting for the two of them to join her in eternity, tapping her fingers against the metal top and wishing that she was literally _ anywhere _ except here right now. She couldn’t even read she was so distracted, do you know how bad that was?

And just when she was thinking of getting up and leaving, trusting that Peter could have it all handled, it was then that she heard their laughter echoing across the cafeteria, head turning instinctively to watch them approach.

Now that she knew what was underneath, it was a lot easier to make out the definition of his muscles through his shirt, back to the long sleeves and sweaters to cover it up as much as he could, but there were just limits to how much you could squeeze into cloth. His shoulders looked especially broad today, though she wasn't sure if maybe that was just because she didn't have a neck to focus on today, scarf wrapped around it still as they both waited for their respective marks to fade away. Thoughts of which had brought heat to her face nearly the entire day.

"Hey MJ," he greeted, slipping into the seat next to her while Ned sat down on the other side as usual. At her questioning eyebrow he shrugged, saying, "I thought we should be on the same side, isn't that what parents do when they're explaining something important?"

She snorted, "I don't have a dad."

"And I don't have parents." He paused, resting his fingers just under his lips. "Maybe it's not the best idea then…"

"My parents do it," Ned said, "Uh, sometimes, I guess."

"Oh, cool!" Peter said, brightening up and turning to MJ, "So… is it cool if we tell him now?"

She took a deep breath, looking between the two of them and seeing nothing except her friends, pushing down any betraying thoughts about judgement or otherwise. If she couldn't talk to them, well, who  _ could _ she talk to? “Yeah, let’s… get to it.”

Silence stretched between them all, none of them really wanting to be the one to start off, as much as they were desperate to talk about it. There was a difference between doing it and actually having to  _ talk _ about it later, she supposed. Eventually however nervousness turned into irritation, and with a huff she shrugged and muttered, “Fine, we had sex.”

_ “How?”  _ Ned yelled, before the combined murderous force of  _ both _ their glares made him shrink right back down into his seat, “Sorry… how?”

“It just… I dunno, happened,” Peter said, looking over at MJ. There was really no other way to describe it in their opinion, it had taken no more than half an hour from dancing awkwardly together to making out in her bed, that was too fast of a time frame to even begin to consider the reasons why. “We were both really drunk, if that explains it.”

_ “I  _ was really drunk, pretty much  _ everyone _ was really drunk, but I’m pretty sure none of them ended up sleeping with their best friends.” Ned smiled brightly, looking right at MJ for a moment. “Just want to say, really glad you’re hanging out with us more, super cool.”

“Me… too…” She replied, smiling somewhat awkwardly and nodding slowly. Clearing his throat to get the conversation back on track, Peter laced his fingers together and leaned forward.

“We weren’t trying to hide it from you or anything Ned, it was just… we didn’t want to treat it like a big deal, right?” He raised his eyebrow at MJ in question. “That’s what we were doing?”

“Yeah, totally,” She said, “It was just something that happened, we didn’t want to like, blow your mind or anything like that, it just wasn’t something we were going to talk about.”

“So are you guys like, together now?”

_ “Hmm?”  _ MJ and Peter both leaned forward at the same time, alarm vibrating in their throats, “Are we  _ what?”  _

“Together?” He said slowly, leaning back slightly and narrowing his eyes, “You slept together… cut through the tension… and now is usually when something happens with that?”

“Well…  _ nothing’s  _ happening,” MJ said, her fingers starting to tap faster along the table, “I… don’t want to date.”

“And neither do I,” Peter agreed, nodding along, “Come on Ned, you’ve heard me talk about Liz, I’m not ready for anything else right now. This was just something dumb that we both ended up doing, it’s not going to be more than that.”

To MJ it looked like Ned was almost… disappointed to hear that, a frown crossing his face before he rested it in his palm. “You two are ridiculous… so that’s… it? Just like that, nothing else?”

“Nothing else,” Peter said, “We’re just trying to be friends right now, we’ve only been talking what, two months now?”

“A little over,” MJ added, opening the pack of fruit that came with the lunch, focusing on the bland taste of processed peaches in lieu of thinking. She could feel his eyes burning into the side of her head, something that she’d become familiar with over the last few months, but right now she was just in really no place to look back into those oddly cute brown eyes and engage in a staring contest of her own. So, she fell back on an old staple.

Embarrassing him.

“Tell him about how your aunt found out.”

_ “May found out about this?” _

Peter’s eyes narrowed, his smile becoming strained, and it was only when MJ looked over at him with that infuriating smirk on her face that he choked out, “I…  _ hate…  _ you.”

He didn’t even react to the mocking kiss that she blew his way, though Ned certainly raised an eyebrow over it.

****

And so that was how MJ ended up walking with the two of them after school, slotting in easily between them as they made their way through the busy streets in search of any time that they could conceivably kill. She never got the chance to think that they might have just forgotten that she was there with them when they left, Ned turning to her pretty much immediately out of the gate and asking her if she’d seen the latest Star Wars. She had, everyone had, but she thought it was funnier to pretend like she’d never even heard of the franchise to begin with. Ned didn’t seem to find it funny after two minutes of astonished rambling followed by realization, but Peter found it amusing enough. It was… nice, seeing him laugh.

Though when they accidentally bumped together and their fingers brushed across each other, she found that she liked even  _ more _ when he blushed from his neck up to the tips of his ears.

And thus began their next little game.

****

It took some debate with herself to convince herself that she’d be able to do it, but she’d already done more amazing things already, what was a little harmless flirting? It’s not like it was  _ real _ anyway, it was just to see him blush, that’s all.

Which was why, when they reached the booth at Delmar's, she decided that her new regular seating spot would be right next to Peter, thumping herself down into the seat without so much as a word and pulling out her book, ignoring the quizzical looks that they were sending her way.

Eventually, once they had decided that was just how things were going to be now, they turned back to each other and resumed their conversation, content with leaving her to her copy of  _ Jude the Obscure. _ Slowly, over the course of a few minutes, she edged her leg closer until her calf brushed his under the table.

Feeling him tense up beside her, she was impressed at how he managed to keep himself from  _ outwardly _ freaking out, aside from a slight stumble over his words that could easily be blamed on excitement for the topic.

Smirking privately behind her book, she coughed and leaned back in her seat, arm bumping into his as she did so. Which, unfortunately, proved to backfire somewhat.

She hadn’t  _ forgotten  _ what his arms were like per se, she’d had more than enough photo evidence saved onto her phone, but  _ seeing  _ was different to  _ touching,  _ even if only indirectly. It had just occurred to her that she hadn’t touched him since, well, she’d  _ touched  _ him, and the reminder of the absolute granite that he had resting underneath his skin brought some heat onto her own cheeks.

Heat which Peter had definitely taken notice of.

“Are you alright MJ?” He asked, narrowing his eyes, “You look kind of… strange.”

“Do you need some water?” Ned suggested, blissfully unaware and intent on staying that way. Even though she shook her head and stuck her nose back in her book, he walked off towards the counter to get her a glass anyway. Leaving her trapped in a corner booth with what was suddenly a very bad idea.

“You’re really doing this?” Peter asked, sliding across just slightly and pressing the outsides of their thighs together, “Are you sure?”

_ Of course, _ MJ thought,  _ Of all the things he gets competitive about, it’s this. _

She wanted to refuse, to say that she didn’t know what he was talking about, until she looked over and saw the infuriating smirk on his face, even when she knew for a fact that his heart was hammering just as hard as hers.

_ Of course,  _ She thought to herself,  _ Of course this is what makes  _ me  _ competitive. _

"You have no idea what you signed up for," She said, so low it was almost a groan, both of them snapping to attention when Ned slid a glass of water across to her.

"Here you go, hope it helps!"

MJ smiled, somewhat bashfully, but it was still more than she gave most other people. These two really brought it out of her. "Thanks Ned, do you have the notes for English?"

"Uhh yeah," He said, grunting as he leaned down to his bag, "They're in here somewhere…"

Seeing her chance, knowing that Peter was watching her all the while, she sighed and stretched herself out, arms raised above her head before she brought them back down, leaving one of her palms to squeeze around his thigh.

She almost laughed at his squeak, muscles tensing under her touch as she squeezed and kneaded with her fingers, sliding them back and forth along the surface of his jeans. Inhaling a breath so shallow she barely even felt it herself, she dragged her hand upwards, tips of her fingers sliding along the seam of his inner thigh, slowly, agonizingly getting closer, closer, until-

"I've gotta get home!" Peter shouted, standing up and slipping out of the booth so fast MJ could still feel him under her hand, "I'll uh… yeah!"

He was gone before they could say another word, bag snatched up and the bell dinging at the door when Ned set his English notes on the table. "What's… up with him?"

MJ shrugged, staring at the door for a moment longer before she reached over and took the notes. "He's going through puberty, I'll give you three guesses."

****

In hindsight, perhaps it was a bad idea to do something like that, given how fast he'd run off. He hadn't even responded to her messages that night, leaving her laying awake most of the night and getting far less than her usual seven hours.

It was only natural that she would assume the worst, right?

And that’s exactly what she did, right up until their shared English class, seated next to each other and focusing all their attention forward and off of each other, listening to a literary analysis that she could honestly refute in a heartbeat, but that wasn’t really in her plan of not being noticed. Even if it was, she was far too distracted at the fact that Peter still hadn’t said a word to her all day, not since he’d left the diner without so much as looking back.

Finally, enough was enough, psyching herself up as she turned slightly in her seat to look at him, mouth open and ready to apologize when she heard something fall lightly across the floor. Looking down, she could see that his pencil had fallen next to her foot, rolling back and forth across the linoleum as they both stared down at it. Before she could lean down and grab it for him, Peter uttered a ‘My bad’ and reached for it himself, pausing when his hand was just above the pencil.

“Peter?” She whispered, “Are y-”

MJ almost jumped in her seat at the feeling of his fingers tracing across her ankle, index finger stroking lazily up the back of her calf and back down again, the heat that hadn’t already pooled in her core shooting right up to her face, knees squeezing together out of instinct. When he looked up at her, fingers still on her skin, the smirk that was slowly stretching into a grin almost set her on fire, lips curling slowly as he mouthed, “Game on.”

Spinning his pencil between his fingertips, Peter turned back to the board and resumed taking his notes, intentionally not looking at her as she stewed silently. It was about as bold as he was going to get right now, it had taken a whole class of preparing himself to do it in the first place and he wasn’t sure what he was going to do if she decided to play along. Which, knowing her, she absolutely was.

And he wasn’t going to have to wait too long for it to happen.

****

“Dude what did you do?” Ned asked, sitting next to Peter and glancing around the cafeteria, MJ nowhere in sight, "Are you guys being weird again?”

"What? No way, we're just… I dunno, it's nothing, don't worry about it."

"Yeah Ned, don't worry about it," MJ said, holding up two sodas, "I just had to go get these, don't be a loser."

"I'm not- is that lemonade?"

"Yep, the really bad one you like," She said, placing it in front of him and stepping around to move to her seat, "Even got one of those other gross drinks for Peter, because I'm a good friend."

Expecting her to walk past him, Peter turned back to his food and was about to continue eating when her voice in his ear made him freeze.

"Making me put the drink down for you, I'm not a maid." Reaching around him and setting the can next to his hand, she pressed her chest against his back, breathing a sigh as she dragged herself up him just enough to not be noticed by anyone watching, but more than enough to be utterly torturous to  _ him.  _ “Drink up, buddy. You look kinda red.”

Releasing his hand from the fist that it had clenched into, Peter took a moment to exhale out through his nose before looking over at MJ, meeting her self-satisfied smirk with a strained smile. “Thank you for the drink MJ.”

“Anytime Pete,” She replied, waving her hand and opening her book, “You too Ned.”

Ned looked between them, sipping at his lemonade hesitantly. “No… I-I think I’m good.”

****

Thankfully their respective marks had faded somewhat, at least around their necks, which was fortunate news for their next class. Skipping gym was something they could do every now and then, but if they didn't want to stick out too much then it would be wise to play along for the most part. 

When they were preparing for the usual warm up of situps and pushups, which would probably be followed by another video since Coach Wilson was feeling lazy, she looked around expecting there to be no one aiming to ask her to pair up as usual. It wasn’t that big of a deal to her, it gave her a good excuse not to have to exercise for a little while longer. Though to her surprise (or rather, her complete lack thereof) she saw Peter walking up to her with a bright smile, lifting a hand in greeting.

“I thought you paired up with Geek Number Two?” She asked, raising an eyebrow and crossing her arms. Peter simply laughed and rubbed at the back of his neck, flicking a thumb over his shoulder.

“Kind of gave him a little push,” He said, looking back to see Ned standing stock still in front of an equally still Betty, neither of them having any idea of what they were supposed to be doing, “Guess that means that I’m free to pair up.”

Narrowing her eyes, she sighed, “Don’t try anything.”

“Don’t worry,” He said, a wicked glint in his eye, “I promise not to touch you.”

Sitting down and waiting for her to take position, he placed his hands behind his head and lay back on the mat, wiggling his knees in front of her. MJ rolled her eyes, getting on her knees and wrapping her hands around his ankles, anchoring him in place while he started his situps. Every time he rose he grunted lowly, the muscles in his biceps bulging with every move and the fabric of his shirt stretching across his shoulders. Dragging her eyes down his chest, she felt something get stuck in her throat when she saw that the hem of his shirt had started to ride up, exposing a faint hint of abs that tensed every time he rose, the distance between their faces lowering to little more than three inches as the exercise wore on, his eyes boring into her the entire time.

“You mind helping me with my shirt?” He asked, corner of his mouth lifting and breaking the spell that she’d been under, hands recoiling away from his ankles and her eyes shooting open.

“Start your pushups,” She snapped, crossing her arms again and willing her cheeks to stop burning, deep breaths in and out anchoring her properly once more. 

“You’re the boss,” He said, lowering himself down and making her  _ instantly _ regret moving them forward in the routine. She’d thought that his arms were impressive when he’d just been doing situps, but seeing them up close like this, supporting his entire weight without a hint of trouble, it was doing a lot of things to her that shouldn’t be done in the presence of other students. She could make out the definition of his back through his shirt, shoulder blades squeezing together every time he lowered himself down and shifting deliciously when he rose again.

Peter looked up at her with that same smirk on his face, and before she could tell him to stop looking at her he’d raised one of his hands from the mat, still low enough that other people might not notice it, but she was close enough to see that it was no longer supporting his weight in the slightest. And yet, he still lowered himself to the mat and pushed himself back up with the same degree of ease, the only thing preventing her from outright  _ drooling _ being the fact that her mouth had gone suddenly and completely dry.

Rubbing her legs together and scowling, she leaned in and hissed, “You just wait,” before she pushed herself up and walked over to the changing rooms, emerging three minutes later with another pair of shorts on. 

Peter didn’t drop the smile for the rest of the lesson.

****

“Alright, now I’m sure you all know this, but who can tell me the difference between a catalyst and a reactant?”

Cindy raised her hand, sitting up straight as she said, “They’re both participants in a chemical reaction, but the reaction can still occur without a catalyst whereas it can’t without a reactant.”

“Very good, and what else?”

“A catalyst speeds up reaction, but is not consumed within the reaction, whereas the reactant is.”

Peter smiled, flashing a thumbs up when she looked over at him before going back to resting his cheek on his palm. He normally loved chemistry, it was probably his favorite class to be in, but he was just too distracted today to really enjoy it. He refused to believe that it had to do with the fact that MJ hadn’t looked back at him once through the whole lesson, his eyes following her hand as she reached up and swept some loose hair behind her ear, memories of how soft it actually was flashing into his mind unbidden.

“Peter? Are you ok?” Cindy asked, waving a hand in front of his face. He sat up straight, shaking his head and apologizing, asking her to repeat what she’d said. “I asked if you wanted to do the practical or if you wanted to take notes this time.”

“Uh… I’ll take the notes, I’m too distracted today.”

Distracted enough to not have seen MJ leave the classroom he realized when he looked back over, squeezing his fingers into his thigh and forcing himself to get back into the work, snapping his goggles over his eyes and getting his pen ready. Writing down the steps of salt metathesis and noting what reactions they could see proved to be just the thing to distract him from what thoughts continued to try and wrestle themselves to the front of his mind, Cindy as always proving to be a good enough partner that he could have a genuinely educational back and forth on the science in front of them.

“...And that gives us nitrate salt. Did you get all that written down?”

“Mmhm! Right next to the formula.” Peter slid the notepad over to her, knowing that she wouldn’t really be able to be fully comfortable until she read over the notes for herself. Feeling his back pocket vibrating, he pulled out his phone at the same time he noticed MJ walking back to her table, grinning widely when she looked back at him and flicking her eyes towards his phone. Tapping the screen and opening up the message almost resulted in him throwing it up through the ceiling in surprise, his eyes glued to the screen for half a second before he pressed the power button as hard as he could, more than enough time for the image to be seared into his mind.

The stalls in the background of the photo told him where she’d gone to, bottom lip pinched between her teeth and her free hand lifting up the bottom of her shirt, one cup of her bra exposed and her thumb slotting between the fabric and the skin, just threatening to expose more with a single movement. The skin of her stomach seemed impossibly smooth and was almost  _ glowing _ in the light of the bathroom, so radiant he felt he could almost go blind. But the look on her face, that was what was sticking with him most, heavy lidded eyes staring right into the camera and out at him, the dark brown of her irises seeming almost black in the reflection. It was a good twenty seconds before he realized he hadn’t been breathing, inhaling deeply and letting it out slowly, heart hammering a thousand beats a minute inside his chest when Cindy finally hummed in satisfaction.

“Good, everything looks good,” She said, looking up at him and pinching her brow together, “Seriously, are you ok?”

“Y-Yeah!” He stammered, “I think I just ate something weird today, I’ll be fine.”

“Ok… because we’ve got Acadec practice after this, we need to have our heads in the game.”

Scrolling back to his messages under the table, he looked across the room at MJ’s wiggling eyebrows before he looked back down, shaking his head once with a small laugh as he typed out his message.

_ You win. _

****

“What’s the capital of Uruguay?”

Sally slapped her hand down on the bell. “Montevideo!”

“Good,” MJ said, shuffling through her cards and looking up at each of them, “What is the ninth number of pi?”

“Five,” Cindy said, so fast they barely even heard the bell go off.

“Good, what year was hydrogen discovered?”

Peter almost knocked the bell off the table when he went to hit it, shouting out as he scrambled forward to catch it, “Seventeen sixty six!”

“Nerd, how many drinks can Flash have before he blacks out?”

The bell dinged loudly in the auditorium, all of them turning to a grinning Abe as he said, “Two.”

“Ok!” Flash shouted, throwing his hands up in the air, “I get it, ha ha, I lost a drinking contest to Penis Parker, it’s hilarious!”

Cindy snorted, “You lost  _ pretty  _ bad, he wasn’t even tipsy by the end of it.”

“It’s not my fault that he’s some kind of… freak of nature!” Peter winced, not because he was particularly insulted but because he wasn’t exactly  _ wrong.  _ “And I didn’t black out, I still saw some things going on!”

While everyone else’s attention was on Flash, and he was too busy gesturing wildly to look at any of them, MJ and Peter immediately flicked their eyes to each other, questions being raised in their eyes that they weren’t sure they wanted answered.

“Like what?” Ned asked, grunting as Peter kicked him under the table and realizing immediately  _ why _ it was a bad question to ask.

“Well…” Flash was clearly sorting through his memories, no doubt fragmented from the valiant effort that he’d put up against Peter. What he came up with was clearly something he hadn’t remembered before, going by the look of shock and revulsion on his face. “Did you… did you  _ drink _ my  _ dishwashing liquid?” _

The rest of the team laughed, but when they noticed that Peter wasn’t denying it they screwed their eyes up in confusion. “Wait…” Sally said, “Did you?”

He blushed, staring down at the table. “I didn’t drink  _ that  _ much…”

“You drank half the bottle Peter,” MJ sighed, smirking at the look of utter betrayal on his face, “Don’t look at me like that, it would have been the whole bottle if I didn’t stop you.”

“Dude…” Cindy turned in her seat, looking at him closer. “Is that why you were all weird today? The weird thing you ate was  _ dishwashing liquid?” _

“No! The tuna in my sandwich kind of tasted like aluminum, that’s all, honest! It’s not like it was poisonous!” He turned to Flash, voice raising in pitch as he asked, “Right? It’s not poisonous?”

“Ehhh…” He waved his hands in a ‘so-so’ gesture, all his previous anger replaced with pure bewilderment at what he’d remembered. Before he could start up again and reveal anything else potentially damning, MJ knocked her knuckles against the podium, all their heads turning towards her.

“Alright,” She said, “Clearly we’re not gonna get anything else done today, so let’s just… I dunno, everyone study on your own at home, we’ll pick up practice on Friday.”

They all packed up, grateful for the early end aside from Peter, who couldn’t help feeling bad that it had been him who had _technically_ been the cause of it, not that he could blame anyone for that. How often did you see someone drink dishwashing liquid?

“Hey, Ned,” He said, patting his friend on the back and flicking his head at the door, “I’ll catch up with you later alright? I should help MJ put everything away, to make up.”

“Sure, sure,” Ned replied, “Congrats, now everyone knows that you can drink  _ anything _ and be fine, that’s pretty cool.”

Peter snorted, going through the motions of their handshake and sending him on his way. Once everyone was gone he turned back to the podium, MJ still standing there sorting her cards into their respective subjects and filing them away. She almost jumped when he walked up and knocked on the wood, Peter raising his hands in apology and taking a step back.

“What is it Peter?”

“I figured I’d help pack everything up, you know, because I made us end early.”

“You didn’t ma- whatever,” She sighed, flicking her head at the chairs, “Go ahead and put those away, I’ll help out in a minute. And… thanks.”

“No problem!” Drumming his hands along the podium and staring at her for a moment longer, he turned on his heel and started stacking chairs up, lifting them easily onto his shoulder and taking them over to the side of the room, whistling as he worked. MJ finished sorting the cards into her binder, shoving it down into her backpack before she walked over towards the other chairs, eyes trailing along the floor until she looked up and saw him grabbing another four of the chairs, stacking them in a column and hoisting it easily onto his shoulder, the sight distracting in very much the same way it had been in gym class.

Truth be told she hadn’t stopped thinking about that all day, nor had she stopped feeling his fingers on her ankle since that morning, and though she didn’t know for sure, she was fairly confident that the same could be said for him. It was distracting, annoyingly so, and it was really starting to get on her nerves, all the more so when he looked over at her and smiled without any hint of the teasing that had been present previously.

“What’s up MJ?”

They were both chronically distracted, and unravelling, and they knew the exact reason why. But what was to be done about that? What solution could they possibly come to that would just… let them move on?

_ You know exactly what, you’re just afraid to ask. _

“MJ, seriously,” He said, brow furrowing and his feet carrying him closer to her, “Are you alright?”

No she wasn’t alright, she was frozen in place, a war waging inside her own mind over what she wanted and what was the right thing to do, a question on the tip of her tongue that she couldn’t  _ believe _ she was considering, going back and forth and back and forth until-

“Talk to me, seriously.” He reached forward, fingers resting lightly on her forearm and shocking her out of her trance. “What’s going on?”

_ Oh fuck it. _

“Peter…” She started, hesitantly, haltingly, as though the words themselves were fighting not to retreat, “Do you… do you want to have sex again?”

The question made his eyebrows raise almost into his hairline, though his fingers never moved from her arm, thumb still stroking idly along the skin and leaving a trail of fire in their wake. Staring down at the ground, going through a process of his own, he took a deep breath and let it out slowly before he said, “...Yeah, I do.”

Without any sense of preamble, she grabbed two fistfuls of his shirt and pulled him towards her, leaning down slightly to crash their lips together and moan into his mouth, finally feeling the tension that had taken hold of her these last few days beginning to uncoil. After half a second of surprise he rested his hands on her waist, fingers digging in and pulling her closer, lips working against hers in a way that just fit perfectly, the two of them stumbling backwards until his legs hit the table and sent him falling onto his back. Readjusting themselves so that they were as comfortable as they were going to get on a hard wood surface, MJ straddled him and wove her fingers into his hair, pulling his head up and meeting him in the middle again.

His heart was hammering so hard he could hardly hear anything else, feeling the vibrations in his throat as he swallowed her moans and responded with his own in kind. Feeling bold, he slipped his hands into the back of her jeans, digging his fingers into her ass and pulling her down at the same time as he thrust up, the friction making them both gasp and stare at each other. Sensing the question on his mind, she decided to skip an answer and grind her hips down into him, slowly at first but increasing her pace as they both got comfortable.

_ "Fuck MJ,"  _ Peter groaned, pulling one hand out of her jeans to rest on the back of her neck, squeezing his fingers in both locations and marvelling at how no matter where he touched, she was still so soft.

Reaching down between them, MJ trailed her hand down his stomach and cupped him through his pants, squeezing gently and grinning at the throaty growl that he gave in response, placing her other hand on his chest and keeping him down. “I’m on top.”

He nodded quickly, frantically, it was the easiest decision that had ever been made for him, watching her rise up onto her knees above him and shuffle herself backwards while she worked on undoing his fly, his one attempt to reach down and help her ending when she slapped his hand away impatiently.

As soon as she undid his zip he sighed in relief, the strain honestly becoming unbearable as they’d progressed, though it was a few seconds until he noticed that she wasn’t doing anything. “MJ?” He asked, resting his palm on her knee, “You alright?”

MJ considered herself to be rather enlightened, at least as much as she could try to be, and even before her and Peter had gotten a little too drunk and then a little too close she’d always considered it her duty to herself to have at least a passing knowledge of what sex was and how to do it ‘right’. It was the twenty first century, she didn’t see any issue with being comfortable in her sexuality.

What she was finding now however, seeing the possibilities laid out in front of her and not having a single drop of alcohol in her system, there were some thoughts that were crawling out of the corners of her mind to stop her right in her tracks. Including one which she thought was actually very good to warn him about.

“I… don’t really know what I’m doing,” She said, laughing to herself and resting her hand on the skin of his stomach, fingers trailing through the course hair just below, “Just… thought you should know.”

He shrugged. “I don’t know what I’m doing either, but… are you sure you want to do this? We don’t have to.”

“I’m sure.” There was a lot of doubt about a lot of things in her life, but this was not one of them. “Just… bare with me ok?”

“Come on,” He chuckled, pushing up onto his elbows and stroking his hand down the side of her face, “You’re good at everything, why would that stop now?”

“Dork,” She scoffed, smiling through her blush as she wrapped her hand around him, stomach flipping as his eyelids fluttered in response, “Alright, here goes.”

He’d thought about Saturday a lot in the time since it had happened, they both had, but it always came with that cloud of fog that you always got when you drank, everything just a little unclear, every touch just a little bit hazy. Now, with their minds sharp and their bodies perfectly on edge, there was no mistaking the feel of her hand working up and down his shaft, the heat building in her palm and the slickness of his head, this was happening, this was real, and they were going to remember this until the day that they died. 

“I still can’t believe you managed to hide this,” MJ groaned, fingers sliding along his abs and digging into the hard muscle, “How’d this even happen?”

“Trust me, you wouldn’t believe me,” He laughed, moaning when she squeezed her hand just a little tighter around him to see what would happen, “MJ come on…”

“Just having some fun,” She whispered, moving back until her feet were on the ground and she was lowering herself down to her knees, so close that she could feel the heat radiating off of him, “So uh… sorry if this sucks.”

Her breath tickled over him, his exhale coming out in a shaky laugh, hands clenched tight around the edge of the table, “I think that’s the ide-  _ God!” _

MJ grinned to herself, licking a stripe from the bottom to the top of his length and pumping her hand steadily around the base, licking experimentally before taking the head into her mouth, hoping that she could commit the near  _ whimper _ that he let out to memory. She could see his fingers twitching, and without even needing to hear why she knew what he wanted to do.

“You can put your hand on my head,” She said, “Don’t pull my fucking hair though.”

He nodded breathlessly, resting his hand on the side of her head and stroking his thumb over her temple, focusing all his energy into keeping his touch soft as she continued. It wasn’t perfect, occasionally teeth would scrape the wrong way, or she would misjudge just how deep she could actually go and have to stop for a few seconds to get herself back under control. A thrust from Peter made purely out of reaction almost ended the whole thing, leaving her coughing, him apologizing, and her too busy laughing to actually punch him like she wanted to.

“I’m sorry,” He said, biting his lip to stop himself from giggling, “Forgive me?”

“You… might actually have to forgive  _ me,”  _ She said, running a hand through her hair, “I don’t actually have a condom or anything with me.”

“Oh! I do!” Peter reached into his pocket, digging around for his wallet and pulling out the little foil square with all the dramatism of someone pulling a sword out of a stone. “Someone gave it to me on the street.”

“Do people just… come up to you on the street and hand you condoms?” She asked, grabbing it from him and checking it for holes, “I mean, I know you look like  _ this _ but still…”

He shrugged, smiling as he let his hands slip under the hem of her shirt again and rest on her hips. “If you want to stop…”

“Oh shut up. And don’t move.” Kicking her way out of her jeans and tearing the pack open, she took him in hand again and slowly slid the rubber over the head, rolling it down and poking her tongue through her lips in concentration. Satisfied that she’d paid attention in the one health class they were given, and consciously ignoring the heart eyes that he was flashing at her, she climbed back onto the table and sat on his thighs, poking and pushing at his cock to pass the time while she thought. “So… looks like we’re doing this again huh?”

“Looks… looks like it.”

“You know I haven’t changed my mind about the not dating thing… right?”

He nodded, drawing circles into her thigh with his thumb. “Neither have I.”

“This is just to blow off some steam,” She said, rising up on her knees and positioning him below her, “Just… friends helping each other out.”

“Yeah…” Grabbing her wrist quickly, he added, “You know you’re one of my best friends right?”

“...Peter you have like two friends. And you’re not having sex with Ned so I might be best by default.”

“That’s-” Flicking her stomach and laughing, he fell back against the table. “Alright I’m gonna shut up now.”

She smirked.  _ “Good.” _

Lowering herself down was a strange feeling, she still had that instinctive feeling of ‘oh my God something’s in me get it out’ but it came and went so fast that it was hard to remember that she thought it at all, her teeth clamped around the knuckle of her index finger until she was sat fully down and her hips were flush with Peter’s. Dropping her hand from her mouth, she laced her fingers together with Peter’s and placed the other on his chest, looking up his body into his eyes and seeing them clamped shut.

“Hey,” She said, tapping against his chest, “Look at me.”

Opening his eyes slowly, Peter moaned seeing her sat on top of him, gaze trailing down from her face to where they were joined and making him look right back up again.

“Have I told you how awesome you are?” He asked, “Because I feel like I should say that more.”

“You can tell me that more later,” She huffed, “Just don’t stop looking at me.”

Slowly, knowing that her thighs were already going to be burning by the end of this, she raised herself up and pushed herself back down again, working into a steady rhythm and forcing herself to go slowly. She still needed to get used to all of this, and she suspected that he needed all the time to rest as he could get.

“Holy crap,” He whispered, thrusting lightly upwards when she came down to meet him, “You’re so beautiful...”

“You… you too,” She said, silencing any hint of his laughter by rising up and throwing herself back down on him, pulling him up by his collar and smashing her mouth against his again. Peter grabbed her by her hips, grinding them both together and thrusting when he could, but sitting up wasn’t really letting him do that much. Instead, burying her face in his neck and muffling her moans with his skin, MJ wrapped her arms around his shoulders and thrust herself back down against him, feeling herself building up towards an end with an abruptness that almost took her off guard.

“MJ I…” Peter grunted, fingers bruising her skin, “I don’t know how much… longer I can go…”

“I’m so close, just… just let it go,” She moaned, a particularly violent gasp muffled by his tongue, the table shifting and creaking under their weight, “Fuck, fuck,  _ fuck!” _

“MJ!” He threw his head back, eyes pinched closed as he finally lost himself and saw lights popping in his vision, still thrusting shallowly even as he filled the condom and tried to push her over the edge with him. Thankfully, for the sake of  _ both  _ their sanities, grabbing his hand and pushing it between them was the last thing she needed to finish, grinding her clit shallowly against his fingers and biting down into his shoulder to dampen the near scream that she wanted to unleash. Still gently moving herself, guiding them both down slowly through the aftershocks, she pulled him in and let him rest his forehead against her collarbone, breathing a joined sigh of relief as they felt all the tension just… evaporate.

“I think we both needed that,” He mouthed against her chest, lips tickling her skin and bringing a smile to her face, “We should… probably leave right? Doesn’t the janitor start soon?”

“Oh my  _ God!” _ She shouted, pulling off of him and wincing at her sensitivity, “We just fucked in the auditorium!”

The reality of the situation seemed to sink in for him at that moment too, scrambling to his feet and pulling off the condom, tying it up and almost tripping over his pants as he raced over to the trash, burying it beneath countless discarded pieces of food and scrunched up balls of paper. Hopping back over to her as he pulled his pants up, he kicked up her jeans into his hand and handed them to her, hesitating for a moment before he pressed a kiss to her cheek and blocked any possible view from the front doors as she put them back on. “Ok,” He said, “Maybe not our best idea…”

“Probably not the worst…” Tapping him on the shoulder, she slipped her hands into her pockets and blew a breath of air through her lips, “Soooooo… leaving now, right?”

“Oh! Yeah, yeah…” Dashing over to the podium, he picked up both their bags and looped them over his shoulders, joining her at her side and making their way out of the auditorium, doors echoing behind them as they breathed a sigh of relief seeing no one else around. They didn’t say another word to each other as they walked through the halls, feet thumping loudly against the tiles until they were outside again, the idle sounds of New York City filling their ears and bringing them back down to earth. Somewhat at least.

“So…” He coughed, handing over her bag and rubbing at his arm, “That was… pretty fun.”

“Yeah! Yeah it… it was.” She wanted to say something, literally  _ anything,  _ but words weren’t exactly cooperating with her right now. The most that she could do was thump her fist against his shoulder with a smile, the same one that she’d bitten into if his expression was any indication.

“So I don’t want to like, make things weird or anything…” He said, clearing his throat and looking in every direction but at her, “But that was… pretty awesome, and  _ you’re _ pretty awesome, and  _ I’m-” _

“Peter,” She said, looking at him very seriously, “Please, just ask. Or  _ I’m _ gonna be the one who asks.”

“Doyoumaybewanttokeephavingsex?”

“Yeah,” She said, nodding quickly, “I really, really want that. We’ve already done it twice now, what does it matter if we keep doing it?”

“Exactly!” He clapped his hands together, holding one up for a high five and pouting when she scowled at him. “Come ooooooon, it’s not the weirdest thing we’ve done with our hands lately.”

Rolling her eyes and forcing herself not to smile, she slapped their hands together and started walking to the gates, finally letting herself grin when he ran to catch up to her. “I’ll… send you a message or something tonight, so we can actually work out how this is going to… you know, work.”

“Yeah! Yeahyeahyeahthat’scool,” He laughed, straightening out his shirt and flicking his thumb back down the street, “You want to walk for a while or..?”

“Mindless walking with nowhere to go?” She mock-gasped, thumping her shoulder against his and following him along, “My absolute favorite!”

“If you’re nice during the walk I’ll get you a sandwich from Delmar’s.”

“If I’m only nice for  _ some _ of the walk can you just give me half?”

He sighed, reaching up and ruffling her hair before stepping out of hitting range. “Fine, half a sandwich. You better be  _ really _ nice!”

She scoffed, “You know what? I think that I was  _ plenty  _ nice to you just before, I think I deserve the whole sandwich.”

“...You know what that’s fair.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't know anything about chemistry.
> 
> And thus the fucking begins again! I should probably make this clear, but this fic is going to be kind of long, so strap in. (Hinty hint >:3c)
> 
> Once again, thank you for all the wonderful comments, they really make this fic worth writing, so I hope that ya'll keep it up!   
> Also I'm too tired right now so just follow me on twitter by going to the last chapter notes I guess <3


	7. Chapter 7

“You know, you’re really lucky that my mom’s working late today.”

“Mm-hmm…” Peter hummed, pressing his lips to the back of her shoulder, arm wrapped around her stomach and holding them close as they lay on their sides. The sheets were both tangled and kicked off the bed, wound around them to such an extent it was fortunate that they had no plans to move anytime soon.

Though MJ was absolutely going to need to remake her bed, and that was a task no one ever looked forward to.

Needless to say their initial plans of walking and getting a sandwich hadn’t exactly stopped at a booth at Delmar’s. Food brought conversation, conversation necessitated eye contact, and both fortunately and unfortunately for them they’d finally found a way to cut out the tension of what that contact brings.

Though not before stopping at a bodega to buy a box of condoms, which was worth it for MJ solely for the chance to see him stammer and stutter his way through the entire purchasing process until they were tucked away in his bag and they were off again.

Cut to an hour and a half later, after countless moans and gasps of each other’s names, here they were; Laying side by side, Peter pressed into her back and their hands linked against her stomach, enjoying the closeness that they had for the time being.

“Was Saturday seriously only four days ago?” She asked, rolling onto her back and pulling the sheet up to her chest, “This all went… really, really fast when you think about it.”

“It did,” He said, propping himself up on his elbow, “Do you want to stop?”

“God no,” She laughed, “I’m just wondering why we didn’t start sooner.”

“Because all we did was stare and neither of us is stupid enough to drink at school?”

“Yeah, you’re right. Save that for when we’re in senior year and in the middle of a breakdown.”

“See, now that’s a realistic plan.” Peter grinned, finger drawing shapes along the surface of her skin. “We should probably have that talk about like, rules and stuff right? Unless you just want to text when we’re two inches away from each other.”

“No, that sounds like a good idea.” Slipping onto her other side to look at him, they both stared at each other for a few moments before she said, “I don’t know how to start.”

“Neither,” He chuckled, running his hand through his hair, “I haven’t done any research into how things like this go, so I have no idea.”

“Research?” She snorted, “You’re such a dork.”

“Yeah, I go to a science school. With you.  _ Dork.” _

“That actually might be a good place to start.”

Screwing up his brow, he asked, “With science?”

“No, idiot, with us being classmates. And… friends. I think that part should come before everything, put the sex aside, you’re my friend, and I’m yours, right?”

“Yeah!” Peter reached over, pushing some unruly hair out of her face and behind her ear. The brief moment of his fingers gliding over her cheek made her shiver. “I mean like, this is really fun and everything but I like just, you know, hanging out and stuff! The sex shouldn’t come before us being friends.”

“Good.” She nodded. “Ummmm how about schedules? Should we set aside time for it or just send a message whenever?”

“I think we both know how good I am at sticking to a schedule, messaging whenever works for me.” He flopped over onto his back, stretching his arms for a moment before relaxing into the mattress again. “I mean, if that works for you and everything.”

“I like just floating through it, that’s fine.” Leaning over and brushing her finger along his pec, she watched goose bumps pop up in her wake, losing herself for a moment before she remembered the list she read in an issue of Cosmo at the doctor’s office. “Exclusive?”

“Exclusive?” He asked, arching an eyebrow, “What do you mean?”

“Like, is this just a thing that  _ we  _ do together or are we going to, you know, try with other people too?”

Peter opened his mouth to answer, before shutting it again and staring up at the ceiling, genuinely considering the question. It felt like it warranted a little more thought at least. “I don’t really see myself trying, I think this is enough for me, at least for now, you know?”

“Yeah, totally. I mean you’re an  _ idiot,  _ but everyone else is stupider so I don’t really see any reason to try and involve anyone else.” She grinned, shoving his shoulder when he looked affronted. “Come on, you can’t deny it.”

“Maybe,” He laughed, “But you’re  _ sleeping _ with this idiot, what does that say about you?”

“That I’m immensely charitable, and I’ll have a good career looking out for the little guy in the future.” Shuffling closer, she pinched his cheek and snickered, stretching herself out and taking advantage of the difference in their stature. “Get it? ‘Little guy’?”

“Oh ha ha,” He growled, leaning over her and pressing his lips to hers, mumbling out, “You’re  _ so _ funny.”

She hummed appreciatively against his mouth, hand coming up to tangle in his hair, now thoroughly messed up into a mess of curls that she wasted no time in twirling her fingers around. Their kisses were slow, languid, a stark contrast to the frantic pace their previous two encounters had entailed. It was easy to get lost.

“Actually, now I’m thinking,” She said, pressing her palm against the center of his chest and waiting until he was looking at her, pupils still blown and his lips parted,  _ “Is  _ there anyone you’d sleep with?”

“Like… from the AcaDec team?”

She shrugged. “Who else do you spend time with?”

“Hmm.” Pushing himself up to sit, leaning against the headboard, he thought over in silence until she sat up as well and leaned into his side.

“Come on, boys and girls, who would you sleep with?”

“Well I mean, there’s three girls on the team and I’m  _ already  _ sleeping with one of them.”

“Ha ha dick, I mean aside from me. Come on, I’m trying to get an idea of your type.”

“Well I mean… I dunno, Cindy’s a pretty cool friend, and she’s… cute?”

She scoffed, “I’m not gonna bite your head off because you say she’s cute, she is. What about Sally?”

“Isn’t she dating that girl from Brooklyn? I wouldn’t want to be like, a homewrecker or anything like that.”

“Oh right, yeah I forgot about that,” She hummed, “So I guess Cindy is your answer?  _ Cute, cute Cindy?” _

“Goddammit…” He groaned, crossing his arms and staring up at the ceiling, “You’re the worst, you know that?”

“Yeah,” She laughed, bumping herself against his shoulder until he cracked a smile, “She’s my answer too, I haven’t really talked with Sally that much and I’m not a homewrecker either. Cindy’s probably more my type anyway.”

Peter looked over at her with a curious look in his eye, a question already humming in his throat. “Are you bi?”

“Yep, I refuse to believe that it’s surprising.”

He grinned. “No, it’s really not. Same.”

“That’s  _ definitely _ not surprising,” She laughed, “But now we get to the fun part...”

“Ugh,” He groaned, “I guess if I had to pick one of the guys it’d be-”

“You can’t say Ned, that’s cheating.”

_ “Dammit!” _

“Come ooooooon, give me something unpredictable! Charles, Abe or Flash, who would it be?”

Peter popped his lips, tapping his fingers along his thighs as he thought over his options, before his face changed from one of wonder to one of annoyance so quickly that MJ almost slid away in surprise. “Ugh,” He scoffed, disgust in his tone, “I think it’d be Flash.”

“Ha!” She barked out a laugh, hiding a snort behind her hand,  _ “Flash?  _ Seriously?”

“I’m not happy about it! He’s a… he’s just…”

“A complete dickweed?”

“Yeah!” He sank back against the headboard, crossing his arms and sighing, “But he’s… kind of hot I guess.”

MJ thought about it, putting aside their personal interactions (something she found  _ very _ hard to do in Flash’s case) before she shrugged. “In that… rich, weasel kind of way I guess, yeah.”

_ “Please _ don’t tell him I said that, I’ll never hear the end of it.”

“I assure you, I’m not going to go out of my way to engage in a conversation with Eugene Thompson.”

“Well that’s a load off my mind.” He smirked, pushing her shoulder with his and saying, “Come on, what about you?”

“Hmm… _ I’d _ say Ned but he is just so  _ painfully _ into Betty that I’d just feel bad, and one best friend is enough for me right now.” Peter snorted, waiting for her to continue. “So I guess… oh  _ dammit!” _

“What?”

“I’d choose Flash too.” She scowled. “This  _ sucks.” _

“Ha!”

MJ narrowed her eyes, poking him in the side until he squirmed. “You don’t laugh at me, I laugh at you.”

“That’s weird,” He giggled, half-heartedly slapping her hand away as she kept prodding him, “Because right now I think that I’m really laughing at you.”

Shoving him onto his back, she swung her leg over his body and shoved her lips against his, able to feel his smile as he danced his fingers along her sides. She grinned when she felt the hitch in his breath from her hand finding its way back onto his chest, sliding lower and lower, so torturously slow until-

_ “Spiders in my head, spiders in my mind!” _

They both jumped at the sound of Peter’s phone ringing from its place on the floor next to the bed, still in his pocket from where he’d dropped his pants. Peter grabbed her by her hips, both of them laughing as he rolled them over towards the side of the bed, his lips ghosting along her shoulder as he fumbled around blindly for his phone.

“Hello?” He answered, holding the phone to his ear, “What’s up?”

“Is everything alright Peter?” The sound of his Aunt’s voice suddenly made the contact between him and MJ feel  _ weird, _ the two of them moving to sit side by side on the bed as he cleared his throat.

“Yeah, yeah everything’s fine, I was just studying at a friend’s place, I didn’t think it was that late yet.” Looking at his phone, he grimaced at the time that flashed on the screen. “Ok, I definitely didn’t know it was seven thirty, I can see why you’d be worried.”

“I know that you’ve got… other things that you need to be doing, but just remember to send a message every now and then ok? I still worry about you, even if you tell me not to.”

He chuckled, nodding to himself as his smile spread wider. “I can be back in like, forty minutes, if you wanted to make dinner together? I kind of owe it to you by now.”

“You might actually get something edible in that case,” She laughed, “See you soon honey.”

“See ya May.” Hanging up, he dropped his phone back onto his pants and brushed his hands through his hair. “I should probably get going soon.”

“You should probably get going  _ now,”  _ MJ said, “Don’t you have a forty minute walk?”

He turned to her, smile turning into something much more mischievous. “I live about twenty minutes away.”

“What?” She squeaked as he pushed her lightly onto the mattress, her head coming back up just in time to see him kneel down between her legs and press his lips to the inside of her thigh,  _ “Oh. _ Ok, that works.”

****

“You know, whenever we cook together you always end up doing all of it yourself,” May tsked, “I’m supposed to be the one taking care of  _ you.” _

“I’m… a giving sort of person,” Peter laughed, “Plus I like doing this every now and then, it’s relaxing.”

“Well relaxing or not, I’m still making the sauce. God knows I made you and Ben suffer through enough meals over the years, but the Italian in me can still make a good red sauce.”

“Pretty sure you’d be kicked out of Queens if you couldn’t.”

“Exactly, so get your butt off to the side so I can work my magic on the stove.”

He loved the moments like these, always had since he was just a kid, standing by the fridge and staring up at May and Ben, the two of them doing more dancing with each other than actual cooking, before something would inevitably go wrong and they’d either have to start over or go get take out. It wasn’t until he was tall enough to see over the edge of a pot that they tried teaching him to cook, and considering that both of them had a talent for making anything other than spaghetti and meatballs into a flaming disaster they had no idea where his aptitude for it came from. 

(He didn’t tell them that he just followed the recipes and made sure to keep an eye on the clock, he didn’t want to make them feel bad.)

“So how was it studying at Ned’s?” May asked, stirring idly at the pot, “He hasn’t been around in at least a week, are you guys ok?”

“What? Yeah, we’re fine,” He replied, shrugging his shoulders, “But I wasn’t at his place tonight, I went around to another friend’s place.”

“Another friend?”

“Yeah, I’m actually showing up to meetings this time and it’s making people actually like me,” He laughed, “I think I have like, at least four friends now.”

“Well that’s good!” She said, “You’ll have to invite them over sometime, I want to meet these new friends of yours!”

“I’ll try,” He said, shaking his head and going back to preparing the meatballs, “Hey what nights are you working this week again? I want to  _ try _ and eat dinner here if you’re, you know, here.”

“I think I’m working every night after this, so it’s a good thing that you came home tonight.” Shuffling over to his side, she leaned down and pressed a kiss to the top of his head. “I know you’re going to go out and do your hero thing, but promise to be careful, ok? And tell me when you’re home safe and sound, I don’t want you staying out too late.”

“I got it, I got it,” He laughed, shoving her back towards the stove with his hip, “I’m always careful.”

“Oh really? You’re not going to ‘get distracted by cats’ again?”

_ “May.” _

****

“-and it’s just like, sometimes I just want to be able to relax at home, you know?” Cindy groaned, thumping the back of her head against her locker, “But whenever I’m not studying I should be sleeping, or working, or whatever mom wants me to do, and it’s just…  _ ugh.” _

“That’s rough,” MJ said, popping her locker open and pulling out her books, “Have you tried just… not doing any of that.”

“Of course I have, but I hate  _ not _ doing anything as well, I’m just used to always being busy now, it’s just… so annoying not knowing what to do.”

MJ could definitely relate to that, after being used to things going a certain way for so long it was difficult to change it, even if that change might be something positive. For her that change was having friends, and even though she was getting used to it, there were still… hiccups. She had to really try sometimes to not withdraw into herself like she was so used to, which was why she was standing here talking to Cindy before class instead of just wandering the halls in search of a quiet corner to read.

“Anyway I don’t want to be a downer this early in the morning, anything cool happening with you?” Shrugging her bag onto her shoulder, Cindy fell in step next to her as they walked through the mass of students. 

“No, just… same old same old.”  _ I could barely feel my legs last night, but I’m not going to  _ tell _ you that.  _ “Thinking about the history test next week, don’t want to study for it.”

_ “Ugh  _ don’t talk to me about studying right no- oh hey it’s Peter!”

MJ looked up, swearing under her breath when she realized she’d been leading her towards Peter’s locker, just like she did by herself every morning. It wouldn’t be a big deal, they’d been around each other with their friends before, but that was before they started up this…  _ arrangement, _ and she wasn’t sure what his reaction was going to be to seeing her today.

They’d spent  _ a lot _ of time with each other last night after all.

Peter looked up at Cindy’s shout, eyes flicking between the two of them before he smiled and waved. “Hey!”

“Where’s the other nerd?” MJ asked, eyes focused on his as he shrugged.

“Out sick, he was supposed to give his notes to Betty for their English project so I’m gonna go do that in a bit. I just kinda… forgot about it while I was standing here.”

Cindy laughed, “You should probably  _ not _ forget that, she’s under enough stress as it is.”

“Yeah, yeah,” He sighed, stretching his arms above his head and resting his hand on the back of his neck, “Well I should… uh, yeah.”

Shutting his locker and waving once, he turned around and started making his way down the hall, no doubt following the directions that Ned had given him to her locker. Cindy watched him go, narrowing her eyes before she looked back at MJ, staring until MJ took a step back and asked, “Uh… what are you looking at?”

“Am I insane, or did you hook up with Peter Parker?”

_ “What?” _ MJ almost shouted, grabbing her by the wrist and pulling her closer to the wall, out of earshot of the crowd, “What the hell are you talking about?”

“He had a hickey just under his collar, and you-” She reached forward, tapping her finger against MJ’s neck, just below her jaw. “-have one there, it’s faded but still.”

“I don’t-” She wanted to deny it, and a few weeks ago she definitely would have, but she was trying to be… different with how she treated her friends. And, much as it annoyed her, that meant not  _ lying _ as much when they asked her a genuine question. Plus it seemed like Cindy already knew, and at this point it would just be insulting to deny it. “Fine, yes, don’t tell anyone.”

_ “When?”  _ She whispered, leaning closer, “I like him but he’s just… such a  _ dork.  _ And you don’t… I saw you make someone actually  _ cry _ when they tried to hit on you a few months ago, how’d this even happen?”

“It was at Flash’s party when we both got drunk, we went back to my place and… yeah.”  _ Wow, there really weren’t that many steps were there? _

_ “Wow,”  _ Cindy said, leaning back against the wall, “I don’t know how I didn’t notice the hickey until today, I sat right next to him in science yesterday.”

MJ scratched her neck, pursing her lips before deciding that there was no harm in telling her the truth now that she already knew. “That’s because… uh… they weren’t there when you were sitting next to him yesterday.”

Cindy narrowed her eyes, before they widened in realization.  _ “Oh!  _ You hooked up again?!”

_ “Keep your voice down!  _ But… yeah, we had sex again, it’s no big deal.”

“You guys had  _ sex?” _

_ Oh, right, people mean different things when they say hook up. Whoops. _

“Yes, fine, we had sex after decathlon. And again when we went back to my place, happy?”

“Wait, MJ!” Cindy got closer, almost close enough for MJ to take a step back before she saw the openness in her expression. “I’m not going to say anything, ok? And I’m happy for you, really! I just… this is exciting, and everything is so  _ boring _ with me right now, I just want to… I don’t know, have something  _ fun  _ to talk about.”

“You… want me to tell you about hooking up with your lab partner? That’s not… weird, or anything?”

“I mean if you don’t  _ want _ to tell me that’s fine too, but I just figured… you know, maybe you  _ would  _ want to talk about it? I want you to feel like you can tell me things, we’re friends aren’t we?”

“I…” Now that she thought about it, it  _ would _ be nice to have someone to talk to about this. Ned was her friend, but she didn’t feel like they were  _ there _ enough to be able to talk about this sort of thing, not to the extent that Peter would be able to. Besides, if he knew he was being judged on performance then maybe he’d want to… improve, if that was possible. They’d already set a high standard, she could only imagine what their potential could be.

“Alright hold on, I need to tell him about this.”

Pulling out her phone, she ignored the way that Cindy tried to angle herself to see the screen before she started typing.

_ MJ: Hey, ass, don’t lift your arms over your head anymore _

_ Peter: I showered this morning, I swear! _

_ MJ: Did you fall over in the shower too? Or was that actually a hickey that Cindy saw on your neck? _

_ Peter: ………. _

_ Peter: Shit _

_ Peter: Technically that’s your fault _

_ MJ: Not the point right now _

_ Peter: Yeah I guess that’s true _

_ MJ: Anyway she knows we’re having sex, figured you should know _

_ MJ: And let’s keep the amount of people who know the same, ok? _

_ Peter: yes ma’am _

_ Peter: Uh _

_ Peter: Sorry btw _

_ MJ: Also I’m going to tell her about what you’re like in bed _

_ MJ: Just so you know _

_ Peter: I know that I can’t stop you from doing that _

_ Peter: But can you at least tell her good things? _

_ MJ: You want Cute Cindy to have a good impression? _

_ Peter: I’m deleting your number >:( _

_ Peter: Bye _

“Well, that’s going to make Chemistry weird,” MJ said, pocketing her phone and sighing, looking into Cindy’s oddly  _ excited _ eyes, “Now I guess… I dunno, I’ll tell you how he went down on me or something.”

****

_ This is the worst. _

Peter pocketed his phone with an odd feeling of  _ heaviness _ in his chest, he knew that Cindy wasn’t a gossip by any means, at least not when it came to people she considered friends, but it was still… weird to have other people know. It had been literally one day since they’d started and people were already figuring it out, it didn’t exactly set him at ease.

He was in such a state of  _ un _ ease that he completely forgot where he was actually going, only realizing that he could see Betty Brant next to him right before he walked face first into the locker next to her with a tremendous bang, barely forgetting to act hurt as he whirled around and tried to salvage his appearance.

“Oh my God!” She shouted, jumping back and shutting the door to her locker, “Are you ok?”

“Hm, what?” He asked, leaning his elbow against the row of lockers and wincing when he felt the dent in the metal from his face, “Yeah I’m fine. Uh… how are you Betty?”

“Good…” She said slowly, nodding her head and picking up her bag, “I’m going to… go to class now…”

“Oh! Right! Class!” Peter dropped his bag to the ground, kneeling down and unzipping it quickly, “You’re Ned’s partner for English right? Did he talk to you this morning?”

“No,” She replied, shaking her head, “Why? Did something happen?”

“Apparently he ate some bad chicken last night, wanted me to grab his notes from his locker and give them to you, since, you know, you’ve got a project to prepare for.” Poking his tongue through his lips and almost shoving his head into his bag, he searched through for a few more seconds before he grabbed the folder and pulled it out, holding it up in front of her. “He told me he was going to tell you but he probably passed out, he didn’t sound too good.”

“Oh, well, thank you Peter.” She smiled, reaching down and taking the folder from him. “I’m… sorry about your face?”

“Oh don’t worry about it, happens all the time,” He laughed, scratching his cheek, “Well I should… let you get started on that project. Let me know how it goes!”

“I’ll tell Ned that you got everything to me, I’m sure he’ll feel a lot better knowing that.”

“Yeah…” He stopped, holding his finger under his chin for a moment before his eyes lit up. “Hey, I was gonna go around to his place and study tonight, you want to tag along? Be a good way to do your project and everything.”

“Um… sure!” She twirled a strand of hair around her finger, suddenly seeming so much more nervous. “You don’t think he’d mind me going around?”

Peter waved his hand. “He’ll love it! All the gross stuff’ll be done by tonight, he’ll love having friends around. Meet outside the front gates just after school?”

“Yeah… yeah!” Her smile brightened, a bounce in her step that hadn’t been there before. “I’m looking forward to it!”

She waved as she turned away, leaving Peter standing there for a moment before he pulled his phone back out of his pocket.

_ Peter: I’m undeleting your number _

_ Peter: Can you come with me to Ned’s tonight? _

_ Peter: Taking Betty around to do her project and they’re too cute _

_ Peter: I won’t be able to take it _

_ MJ: I think I came with you enough last night _

_ Peter: THAT’S what stuck out there? _

_ MJ: Just kidding _

_ MJ: Loser _

_ MJ: Yeah I’ll come with you _

_ MJ: I’ve actually got homework that I need to do too _

_ Peter: YES! _

_ Peter: I owe you _

_ MJ: Yeah you do _

_ MJ: I’ll make sure you pay me back _

_ Peter: :0 _

****

Chemistry was normally one of Peter’s favorite subjects, this was well known to just about everyone who had ever met him. That however was being tested today, if for no other reason than the fact that his normally vocal and questioning lab partner had spent the better part of the lesson just staring at his side-profile, a look on her face that just told him that she knew something that he didn’t.

Except he  _ did _ know what she knew, which was why he hadn’t done anything except shuffle in his seat and keep his eyes trained firmly on the board, willing the torturously slow seconds to tick by faster so he could be free of this hell.

“Heard some pretty interesting things about you,” Cindy said, still staring at him and smirking at the way his ears went red, “Really… surprising things.”

“Yeah?” He squeaked, staring across the room at MJ and mouthing  _ ‘help me’.  _ She hadn’t stopped grinning through the whole class.

“With how much you ramble I shouldn’t really be surprised you like using your mouth.”

“Cindy, I am  _ begging you  _ here-”

“Yeah I heard you do that too.”

“God!” He slumped across the table, groaning into the sterile surface rather than looking up at her. Just thirty more minutes of this, then he was free. “You’re still staring at me, aren’t you?”

“Yep. Just trying to… work out how  _ you _ did  _ that.” _

“Is it really that surprising?” He asked, turning his head to see her arched eyebrow, “Fine, yeah, stupid question. You’re not going to say anything are you?”

“No, I’m just going to make fun of you forever. It’s fun, I can see why MJ and Flash do it.”

_ “Fantastic.” _

She snorted, “Cheer up, it’s not all bad. I mean, you get to do  _ that  _ with  _ her.” _

Peter looked up, following her pointer finger across the room to MJ, who was still grinning at his obvious misery. Though, when his worried frown morphed slowly into that infuriating grin once more, her eyes widened in realization and her mouth twitched in warning.

A warning which was promptly ignored.

“Hey Cindy, how about I tell you what  _ she’s _ like?”

Cindy sat up straight, actually  _ vibrating  _ in her seat excitedly as he leaned over and started whispering in her ear. It was totally worth MJ trying to murder him as soon as she got the chance.

****

“You know you made the biggest mistake of your life, right?”

Peter grinned, leaning against the wall where he’d been waiting for her to finish class. “Probably. Can’t wait to see what you do about it.”

“Maybe nothing, maybe something  _ really _ bad,” She whispered, narrowing her eyes and smirking, “You’ll just have to wait and see.”

“I don’t think that we should find out at school though,” He whispered back, flicking his eyes at the students filtering out into the hallways, “Otherwise they might all find out that you  _ really _ like it when I-”

“We should go meet Betty,” She interrupted, grabbing him by his collar and leading him along towards the exit, letting him go once he’d gotten the message. Betty was already waiting for them when they stepped through the doors, perfectly punctual as she always was, something that MJ would have  _ really _ liked more on the AcaDec team.

“Hi Peter,” Betty said, waving at the two of them as they approached, “Hey Michelle.”

“Betty.” MJ nodded, turning to Peter. “So, are we heading to Ned’s or what?”

Conversation didn’t come easy at first, both of them knew  _ of _ Betty of course, it was impossible not to with Ned as their best friend and those news broadcasts playing on every TV throughout the school, but they’d never really sat down properly and  _ talked _ to her. To be completely honest, neither of them knew anything about her except that she was rich and she was nice, which was… not really much of a metric to know someone by.

“Soooo… Betty,” Peter started, once they’d spent ten minutes not saying a single word, “Did you… do anything fun on the weekend?”

“I spent all of Sunday in bed, I felt so  _ bad,”  _ She giggled, “I can’t even imagine how bad you felt, I’m pretty sure you drank enough to kill someone.”

“Yeah well,” He chuckled, “That’s the price for making Flash look stupid I guess.”

“And you,” She said, looking back at MJ, “I’m so sorry for taking Ned away from you, you had to look after Peter all by yourself!”

“Yeah,” MJ said, grinning over at him, “He was a real  _ handful.” _

“Anyway, you had a good time right?” Peter asked quickly, “Ned can dance pretty well right?”

“He can! I was surprised, I thought he was just going to flail around like I do.”

“Don’t tell him I said this,” Peter said, leaning in and lowering his voice, “But his mom made him take dancing lessons for like, six years. He’s kind of really good at a whole bunch of dances.”

Seeing the way her eyes lit up made them both grin, the conversation flowing much easier after that. MJ learned that they were both currently reading through  _ Anna Karenina, _ and Peter was excited to hear that Ned had convinced her to check out  _ Firefly, _ though she hadn’t had the time just yet.

“It’s really good!” Peter said, “It’s… aged, but it’s still a good show.”

“Aged?”

“Mal has views on women that are sexist in a way that doesn’t even make  _ sense _ in universe, and there isn’t a single Asian person in it even though China is apparently one of the dominant superpowers and every white person speaks bad Mandarin.” MJ shrugged. “But yeah, it’s still pretty good. It’s better than what Whedon writes  _ now.” _

“Oh, I’ll have to… keep that in mind.”

“But you should definitely watch it with Ned if you get the chance,” Peter said, “We watch it all the time together, but I think he’d  _ really  _ like it if he was watching it with someone who hasn’t seen it, you know?”

MJ snorted, mouthing from behind Betty,  _ “Subtle.” _

****

The three of them made it to Ned’s apartment in no time at all, jogging up the stairs following Peter’s lead until they reached a door at the end of the hallway on the fourth floor, rapping his fist six times quickly and having it open barely half a second later.

“Hey Mrs. Leeds!” He grinned, waving lazily. “Is Ned, you know, alive?”

She laughed,  _ “Barely,  _ but I’m sure having friends over will bring him back from the dead.”

“Let’s hope,” He chuckled, gesturing back at his two friends, “This is Michelle and Betty by the way.”

“It’s wonderful to meet you two, now come on inside, I’ll get you some drinks.”

They shuffled inside, looking around at the very  _ brightly  _ colored apartment lined with family pictures and baby photos of a chubby-cheeked Ned, something that Peter  _ still  _ found adorable to this day. Stepping around the couch and stopping in front of yet another door, he knocked twice and pushed it open slowly, calling out, “Hey Ned? You’re not doing anything gross are you?”

“No…” Ned groaned back, “I did that this morning. What’s up?”

Peter smiled, opening the door further and moving inside. “Wanted to come see how you were doing, me and MJ missed you at lunch today. Oh and also I brought Betty here.”

“You  _ what?”  _ Ned sat up in bed, pulling the covers back onto himself and staring at the door, seeing Betty waving shyly from her place next to a smirking MJ. “Uhh… hey Betty.”

“Hi Ned,” She replied, “I’m sorry that you got sick.”

“I’m feeling a lot better! Sorry for ditching you today, I didn’t, you know, want to pass out in the middle of class.”

MJ and Peter grinned at each other, MJ pushing him back a step towards the door and looking back over her shoulder to say, “Well I’ve got to talk to Peter about Decathlon, why don’t you two get started with your work and we’ll come join you in a bit?

“Ok!” Betty said, reaching into her bag at the same time as Ned looked up at them, eyes wide and almost begging them to stay put. His nervousness morphed into a scowl however when they both winked at him, before turning on their heels and heading out of the room.

“Was that mean?” Peter asked, thanking Mrs. Leeds for the glass of juice before she retired to her room, “I feel like it might have been a  _ little _ mean.”

MJ snorted into her glass, “Maybe a little, but I bet by the time we go back in there he’s gonna be having the time of his life. He’ll thank us later.”

“Maybe,” He laughed, “Did you actually want to talk to me about Decathlon? Or was that just so you could get me alone?”

“Oh yeah definitely, I was just waiting for the chance to crawl into your lap on this… is this a plastic wrapped couch?”

“I think it’s just a new couch, they forget things sometimes.”

“Huh. Well anyway I did actually want to talk to you about practice tomorrow.” She sank into the couch, scrunching her face up at the crinkle of the plastic before it passed and she was looking back up at him. “You’ve been coming to every practice over the last couple weeks, which is like, really cool. I was just wondering if you were going to, you know, keep that up.”

He grimaced. “The flake reputation isn’t really going to go away anytime soon, is it?”

“It  _ was _ a pretty big deal that you didn’t show up for Nationals, Flash was a mouthy asshole about it but we were  _ all _ pretty disappointed.” She smiled, a quick quirk of the corner of her lips that went by so fast he almost didn’t see it. “I just want to make sure that we can count on you, that’s all.”

Peter reached out, stroking his finger along her cheek for a moment before he sat down next to her, taking a moment to think like she would appreciate him doing. “I can’t promise that I’ll make it to  _ every _ practice, I’ve still got the internship to take care of even though I cut back on the hours, but I’m going to  _ try _ to make it, I promise that. Nothing like Nationals, I’m not going to let you guys down like that again, really.”

“Ok,” She said, nodding and exhaling a breath, “If something does come up then talk to us though, so we actually know  _ why _ you’re not showing up, that’s all. Or I’ll tell Cindy that you cried the first time we had sex.”

“God you  _ would _ do that, wouldn’t you?” He laughed, grinning widely and relaxing back into the couch, “I promise, pinky swear, I’ll let you guys know what’s going on.”

“Good.” She linked their pinkies together, shaking once before their hands flopped back to their sides. “You think they’d mind if we just ditched them now?”

“I think we should actually get some studying done,” He chuckled, reaching into his bag and pulling his books out, “I don’t know if you remember but I missed  _ a lot _ of school.”

“How responsible,” She said, pulling out her own books and heading towards Ned’s bedroom, “You know  _ Flash _ wouldn’t put work ahead of fun.”

“Flash would hump a rock if it had a mirror attached to it.”

“I’m going to keep that in my memory for the next time he gets too confident.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> PETER! EATS! PUSSY!
> 
> Ok it's finally up! Sorry it took so long, and if it feels like things are still moving along slowly, it's been a really stressful couple of weeks for me so at a certain point I just wanted to get this chapter over and done with. He'll put the suit back on soon!
> 
> Also this might sound fucked up, but I wish that Cindy got dusted in Infinity War too, because then she would have actually been in Far From Home. I just... I love her so much :'( (I've got an idea for an angsty/fluffy fic about that actually, I might write that out sometime soon!)
> 
> Peter's ringtone is Spiderhead by Cage The Elephant, because I refuse to believe he wouldn't have a hilariously on the nose ringtone. Plus you know, indie kids love Cage The Elephant.
> 
> And as always be sure to let me know what you liked, what you're thinking, how I'm doing, I love every comment that ya'll leave for me :3 I've gone back and read them a lot over the last couple of weeks.


End file.
